Here is a little quiz for you:
A pitcher named Nate Robertson posts the following line. How many runs does he give up?

A) 4 runs
B) 5 runs
C) 6 runs
D) 1 run, but it's unearned

If you answered D, I'm sorry you had to watch that sorry excuse for an offense sleepwalk through four hours and ten minutes of anticlimactic baseball.

Supposedly, this team was built to score more consistently. They sacrificed some power for some speed and that was going to help prevent those games when the offense decided to mail it in. Surprise, surprise, we've got the S.O.S; Same Old Shit.

How about some statistics on the night...

• The Sox walked 11 times. Of those 11 walks, 0 scored.
• They left 16 men on base
• They left the bases loaded 3 different times
• The 3 through 6 hitters went 2-18
• As a team, the Sox went 0-for- with RISP.
• Detroit had as many extra base hits in the 11th(1) as the Sox had all game.
• The lone player who had an extra base hit was pulled in favor of Timo Perez. Yes that Timo Perez
• Dmitri Young went 0-4 with 3 strikeouts. You still suck Dmitri.

• First, let me start off by praising Ozzie. In the 8th inning, with the Sox losing by a run, Damaso Marte fell asleep while on the mound and allowed Dmitri Young to steal second base. He had already begun pitching to the right-handed Omar Infante, falling behind 2-1. Ozzie wasted no time pulling Marte in favor of Dustin Hermanson. That's a move you don't see many managers make, though you probably should more often.
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• Speaking of Dustin Hermanson, how great has that guy been for us? He's been ailing with back spasms for about the past week, and comes in to pitch 2.1 innings of shutout baseball in a tied or 1-run game.
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• If you're Ross Gload, how bad do you feel right now? The Sox are beat to hell. There are more healthy bodies to be found at the local morgue than on the White Sox bench, and you're still not playing. The last three games Ozzie has had to use his entire bench, yet Gload has been conspicuously absent. I do recall Rooney & Farmer saying that he was "a little dinged up" the other day, but at this point you'd have to be missing more than one limb to have not played in the last three games.
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• Willie Harris looked pretty tentative at short stop in his second career appearance there. Still, he made every play that came his way, and should be more comfortable playing the position in the future.
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• I mentioned the other day in my old blog that I didn't have any faith in Shingo anymore. He did nothing to dissuade me from that last night.
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• You knew this part was coming, so don't continue reading if you've still got some misguided affinity for Timo Perez.
  
  The Sox loaded the bases with nobody out in the bottom of the ninth last night. Down a run, for a team that preaches FUNdamentals, it should be an automatic win right? According to the Win Probability charts that I've been using, the Sox should win about 75% of the time from that situation.
  
  Aaron Rowand stepped to the plate with the bases juiced, and did his job. He gave the ball a ride to deep center field that easily plated the runner from third and advanced the one from second. First and third, 1 out, tie game. Win Probability? About 83%.
  
  Cue Ozzie Guillen. Taking a page from Dusty Baker, Ozzie decides to pinch hit his most nauseating hitter. (What is it with the managers in Chicago, and their affinity for replacement level hitters with the last name Perez?)
  
  I understand what Ozzie was thinking. There was a righty on the mound, in the form of Troy Percival. Timo actually hits right-handed pitching relatively respectably.(.284/.320/.409) Conversely, Dye has struggled recently with right-handers.(.240/.306/.429 over the last 3 years)
  
  I see the logic behind the move. It's playing the percentages. But here's a little tip for you Ozzie, if the percentages are telling you to play Timo Perez, something is wrong. There should never be a situation, where you pinch hit Timo Perez for the 6th hitter in your line-up.
  
  I know there's going to be somebody who cites Timo's clutch stats from last season. Don't. He's a career (.207/.239/.280) as a pinch hitter. Lenny Harris, the man with the most career pinch hits in baseball history, has a rather lackluster (.260/.313/.329) for his career as a pinch hitter. It's a difficult job that few do well. Timo is not one of the few.