Javier Vazquez was infuriatingly inefficient over his first three innings against the Tigers Thursday night. He needed 60 pitches to get out of the third. Thankfully, his only real mistake, beside throwing too many damn pitches, was a low and inside fastball that Miguel Cabrera parked for the Tigers first two runs.

Ozzie Guillen must have given Vazquez a talking to in between innings, because when Vazquez returned he was a strike throwing machine. He needed just 15 pitches to set down his next 4 batters, all of them on strikeouts. The success was short-lived, however, as Detroit countered with back-to-back extra-base hits, the second of which was our third triple hit to Ken Griffey Jr in just his 4th game played in the field.

By my count, that's 5 extra bases that Griffey has allowed in the field (over an average fielder), which nearly matches the total number of bases he's produced offensively; 6: 4 singles, a walk, and a HBP. In just four games, it's become painfully clear that Griffey is exactly what I expected defensively, an amazing liability any time he takes the field. How long will the Sox keep trotting him out there?

Making matters worse, Nick Swisher reached base in 3 of his 4 plate appearances, hitting two doubles, but he never came to the plate with RISP. Alexei Ramirez made sure of that. The only time Swisher came to the plate with a man on, Ramirez, who reached one batter in front of him on a error-ruled-a-hit, failed in an attempted steal of second base to end the inning.

The Sox had their chances Thursday night, but each time it seemed like Griffey or Ramirez was there to make a key out. Though in Ramirez' defense, he did lay out a rope in the 8th. When Griffey and Ramirez, who left 4 and 5 runners on base, respectively, weren't killing the Sox rallies, they found other ways to shoot themselves in the foot. Moments before Ramirez' rope in the 8th, Paul Konerko doubled down the left field line into the corner. The ball took a funny hop and scooted by Ryan Raburn. It was the type of play that should have allowed even the slowest of baserunners to score from first, but Jim Thome looked like he had MS rounding third and was thrown out by a solid 15 feet. It's hard to fault Jeff Cox for sending Thome after the bobble, but he'll have to be more conservative in the future.

Ozzie stuck with Vazquez for as long as he could, letting him throw a season high 122 pitches. But not even Nessie could bring home the Sox a victory. Ozzie didn't use him properly. You have to leave him in to be eligible for the win, not pull him with men on base. Ehren Wasserman, whom Ozzie called upon to replace Russell, immediately put the game out of reach.

The loss puts the Sox just a half game up on the Twins--as if I had to tell you scoreboard monkeys--who play the Royals this weekend while the Sox host the BoSox for a 4 game set. Let's hope it turns out better than last season's 4-day ass-whooping.

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Scott Linebrink, who last we heard was well on his way to recovery, now "isn't close to throwing a bullpen session," which pushes his return to the team back to the end of the month at the earliest. Ugh.

Since 4/25, the bullpen has allowed 7 homeruns in 118 innings pitched. During that span, they've posted an ERA of 2.59, and that includes the Wasserman, Masset, and Loaiza back end. Two of those 7 HR were allowed in garbage time by Masset and Loaiza last week against the Twins. Let's take a look at the other 5.

• 4/28 -- 11th inning -- Ramon Hernandez hits a solo shot off Scott Linebrink. Sox tie it in bottom of 11th. Game continues in perpetuity.
• 5/09 -- 9th inning -- Wladimir Balentin hits a solo shot to draw M's within 2. Bobby Jenks needs just 9 pitches all strikes to get the save.
• 5/30 -- 9th inning -- Linebrink gives up a second-pitch walkoff to Cliff Floyd
• 6/01 -- 10th inning -- Matt Thornton gives Gabe Gross a breaking ball to deposit in the RF seats for the Rays second walk-off of the series.
• 6/12 -- 9th inning -- Miguel Cabrera takes Octavio Dotel deep for the Sox 3rd walk-off loss in their last 6 road games.

It strikes me as incredibly unlucky that the bullpen can be simultaneously this good--The 5 high-leverage guys have combined for a 1.55 ERA since 4/25--yet so incredibly unlucky. Those 5 have a 8-3 record since my cherry-picked date, with all 3 losses coming on walk-off HRs.

The above games have something else in common, lack of offense. They scored more than 3 runs in just one of the games (the lone victory highlighted), and combined to score 12 runs total in the 5 games.

Orlando Cabrera is growing into his role as the White Sox leadoff hitter, and his teammates are learning to follow his lead. Yesterday, he showed them how to give away outs on the basepaths, and today he set the tone with a 1-pitch at-bat to start the game. Following his lead, the next 8 Sox batters needed just 20 pitches to make their outs.

Justin Verlander was the story of the night. He threw strikes, and the Sox offense seemed more than happy to quickly put them in play. Weakly. In the air. Verlander wasn't missing bats--he'd have to work deep counts to do that--but he got by inducing consistently weak contact on his fastball.

The Sox only put together one rally, when Cabrera doubled down the left field line to break up the no-hit bid and was then followed by an AJ Pierzynski single down the right field line. Continuing the theme of the series, Pierzynski was thrown out at second base (though replays showed he was safe) to kill the rally.

Verlander's counterpart, Javier Vazquez, was undone in the second inning by a 14-pitch at-bat by Miguel Cabrera. Vazquez (and Hawk) thought he had Cabrera struck out on the final pitch, but the umpire disagreed. The perceived blown call and a dropped ball by Orlando Cabrera on what would have been a spectacular fielder's choice, seemed to bring back First-Half '06 Javy. He threw hanging slider to Marcus Thames, who is a poor hitter with a 'slider-speed bat,' that ended up in the left field bullpen, effectively ending the game. Vazquez racked up his strikeouts, but the rest of the outing had that sort of disinterested, You Guys Let Me Down vibe to it, as Javy tried to be too fine with his pitches, walked some guys, and gave Detroit a couple more insurance runs.

• The White Sox 3-8 hitters combined to go 0-19, with #9 hitter Brian Anderson recording half of the Sox positive at-bats on the evening.
• The 4 hits snapped a streak of 9 straight games with at least 10 or more hits, and marked their lowest total since... wait for it... 9 games ago when they got blanked by the Rays.
• The 9 game streak was the Sox second longest of the retrosheet era (since '56), behind only a 13-game streak by the '97 squad.