I know it's not the best measure for a pitcher, but it is the simplest, most accessible.

I'm curious how you'll respond...

There probably would have been a lot of angst following Tuesday's loss to the Yankees would the bullpen had been able to keep the game close in the late innings. I'd argue that angst would be misplaced, and instead should (theoretically) have been directed squarely at the offense unable to put together the big inning.

The White Sox had what looked to be a big scoring opportunities in the 5th, 6th and 7th innings, but could only net 2 runs total in those three frames. Jermaine Dye had a particularly tough day at the plate, stranding 6 runners and striking out twice in key situations to dampen Sox rallies. And when your hopes are riding on Juan Uribe at the plate, well, you don't have much hope at all.

Trying to find some positives in the breezy three hour, forty-four minute game...

• Jose Contreras looked pretty good. He threw over the top for much of the game, though I assume that had more to do with the general left-handedness of the Yankees lineup more than anything else. Still, his velocity is better than last year, and he looks like a guy who can at least keep the Sox in the game every 5th day.

• The Sox offense had a productive game against Wang. It just didn't result in--how do I put this--runs. They left a baker's dozen stranded on the basepaths tonight.
• With his second late-inning, bases clearing (in a bad way) outing in a White Sox uniform, Octavio Dotel probably won't be getting any high-leverage innings for a while.
• It was almost fun to watch Bobby Jenks pitch again... Then I realized it was Joba Chamberlain. I'm sure Bobby's just saving his heat for the playoffs.
• The Sox gave up 5 homers in their first 160+ innings pitched. In the 9 innings since an unnamed poster boastfully claimed the Sox have "some of the nastiest pitches" in baseball, they've given up 3 more. Coincidence? I think not.
• We're due to have a small, two hour (hopefully shorter) downtime on the site tonight, so don't freak out. We should be back to normal in the overnight hours.

White Sox match 2007 high water mark

Ho Hum. Just another well pitched game won on the strength of the 3-run homer.

Yesterday it was Carlos Quentin who provided the offense with 3-run shot off Dana Eveland; today it was Jim Thome's turn. Thome, who had been benched yesterday even before receiving a 1-game suspension, hit his third HR of the year and his first since opening day in the first inning after falling behind Adam Loewen 0-2. He has yet to hit a HR off a right-hander.

After that, it was about as boring of a game as you can get with Jose Contreras on the mound. I missed the first two batters of the game, and tuned in just in time to see Thome fall behind 0-2. Two hours and fifteen minutes later, Bobby Jenks nonchalantly put this one in the books.

If I was one of those writers, I might say this is a team that just knows how to win. But I'm not. The Sox are winning because they're getting good pitching -- The pitching staff has allowed 4 runs in their last 5 games -- they've embraced the idea of putting guys who get on base at the top of the lineup, and they've always hit home runs.

For his part, Jose was as crisp as he's been since May of 2006. He's still is dropping down too much, as almost every non-forkball pitch he threw to a righty was from the drop-down position, but he had good movement, and more importantly, great location on his pitches. He didn't walk a batter for the first time since an August 17 loss to Seattle last year.

His velocity was in the low 90's -- Gameday says he was touching 93 -- but he'll probably never have the 95 MPH with movement on the corners he displayed during his remarkable '05-'06 run. That's fine by me if we see a whole lot more of the low-90's control pitcher we saw tonight.

* * * * *

• Bobby Jenks and Scott Linebrink, who combined to close out the last two innings allowing only 1 baserunner, each seemed to have some extra life on their respective fastballs. Linebrink was touching 94 on the WCIU gun, and had similar Gameday readings, while Jenks hit 95 on both.

• Carlos Quentin is quickly approaching his longest at-bat streak without hitting a double. He's gone 42 at-bats this season without hitting a two-bagger. The good news is he's still been an effective offensive force. The bad news is I don't think he's quite 100% yet, which I suppose could be construed as good news as well.

  I bring this up because Q is not really a homerun hitter. He's more of a gap hitter. He hit nearly twice as many doubles as he had HR in AAA, and continued that trend to his brief pre-White Sox major league career.

  During the Civil Rights game, Kenny Williams mentioned that Carlos wasn't quite all the way back yet. And that he'd be "all the way back" when we saw him pounding the ball to the right center field gap. I don't think I've seen anything but a lazy fly ball to that field from Q this season. Hopefully we start to see it soon. Then we'll really know what we have in Quentin.

• The Orioles wiped out two Sox scoring opportunities with outfield assists.

A real quick recap since most of you have better things to do on the weekend.

• Jose Contreras was terrible, looking almost nothing like the pitcher who filled us with cautious optimism in spring training. He was throwing far too much from his drop-down delivery, was falling behind a lot, and if not for the out-making abilities of Magglio Ordonez and Edgar Renteria plus an unusual double play he might have given up 10 plus runs. He was that bad.

• Carlos Quentin may be in the process of playing his way into the lineup more regularly. He put the White Sox up early with a 2-run homer in the second after Contreras provided foreshadowing of his poor outing in the first. Though I expect Ramirez and Anderson to see some action this weekend in Detroit.

  "If [Quentin] keeps playing like that, he'll be in the lineup and we'll figure out the rest," Guillen said.

• AJ Pierzynski is off to great start. He already has 2 HR and 7 RBI, which is greater than the output from last seasons back-up catchers, and I'd be willing to bet that it exceeds the production of Toby Hall for the rest of the season. With that in mind, AJ has to stay healthy. He's the batter the Sox can least afford to lose.

• Jermaine Dye has surprised me with his fast start. He was terrible in spring training, and looked like his bat speed and reaction time was way down. But since the games started counting, his swing is much more direct and he's been pounding the ball. He even closed the game with one of those awkwardly good catches that he seems to make on balls in front of him.

• Scott Linebrink has looked fantastic in his two innings of work the last two days. The velocity isn't quite what it used to be, but the curveball he's shown the last two days more than makes up for it.

  Linebrink combined with Logan, Dotel, and Jenks for 4 innings of scoreless relief. They allowed just one hit, and with the exception of Jenks, who needed 25 pitches to get through the 9th, made quick work of the Tigers.

I was going to sit down and write a top 10 list -- Top 10 reasons to watch the White Sox this season, or something like that -- but it looks like Jim beat me to the punch with his 10 post-spring training concerns.

As I noted in the comments section over there, I would have added Bobby Jenks to the list. We spent much of our time prior to the '06 and '07 seasons discussing Jenks' lack of spring velocity and conditioning, only to have him come through with solid seasons even without the 100 MPH heater that he swears he still has. It's almost all superstition that has me wanting to add Jenks to the list, but there's a little bit of me who's worried about those poor spring peripherals.

Anyway, no Top 10 list for me. I'll just do some 14-hours until first pitch rambling and call it a post.

Ramblin' time

• Let's start with optimism... With the exception of his penultimate spring outing, John Danks has taken a step forward. The cutter seems to have added the groundball to his skillset, and if he can throw strikes, he'll have a surprisingly good year. Surprising in that he beats all projections and ends up as an average or better pitcher.
• The same goes for Jose Contreras. He's got more velocity than he's had since May '06. He's coming over the top more. His fastball seems to have more movement than it did last season. It just looks like he's returned to being an asset instead of a liability. I expect either he or Danks is going to have a very good year, a solid #3 type year, with the other falling into the solid #4 category of average innings eater.
• With Buehrle and Vazquez as known quantities atop the rotation, that leaves Floyd, whose spring has caused me to lose some of my optimism. He had a much better spring than last year, and he doesn't seem to be afraid of the zone. But that still doesn't seem like enough to be anything more than below average starter who gets hit too much and gives up too many HRs. Of the three question marks in the rotation, Floyd seems the most likely disappoint.
• Nick Swisher is leading off and playing left field (unless Ozzie changes his mind, again) against Cleveland Monday. Last year it was Pablo Ozuna. I'd say that's an upgrade.
• I've got a bad feeling that Alexei Ramirez will have a .270 OBP after 120 at-bats before the Sox start to question their decision to bring him north.
• I've got a worse feeling that those at-bats are going to come at the expense of Brian Anderson and Carlos Quentin, each of whom seem on the cusp of reaching their once highly regarded potential.
• Charlotte has too many major league caliber players, which wouldn't be a problem if Chicago didn't have too few.
• This post contained no mention of Nick Masset.

I could go on. And I probably will later. But we're a little more than 13 hours from first pitch, and I need some sleep. Go Sox!