South Side Sox, a Chicago White Sox community

The White Sox kept their rotation intact so that Mark Buehrle will pitch Thursday night agianst Detroit and Jose Contreras will open the Texas series on Friday night. "We talked about [skipping Contreras]," manager Ozzie Guillen said after Wednesday night's game was called nearly 90 minutes after the scheudled start. "We thought about it. We're going to show him another vote of confidence that we believe in him and he can still do it. Hopeuflly he'll notice that. I hope he takes advantage of the sitaution. "I don't want to start moving people around and people miss turns, and all of a sudden have too many days off, too many breaks. Everyone should be the same way, and we'll see what happens."

Both [Jose] Contreras and veteran pitcher Bartolo Colon made their 2009 debuts off the mound before the Cactus League game with Seattle, with each impressive in their own way in the bullpen session. Contreras, who is more than three months ahead of schedule after rupturing his left Achilles tendon, was the one opening up more eyes from the simple standpoint of what he was doing. Not only was he throwing all of his pitches, but on several occasions dropped his arm angle down and threw sidearm to test the injury. His fastball had pop on it, leaving pitching coach Don Cooper saying, "The way he looked [Monday], ‘Hey, we could plug him tomorrow.’ But we’re not going to do that.’’

Veteran pitcher Bartolo Colon's return to the White Sox' rotation has hit a speed bump. General manager Ken Williams revealed Wednesday that Colon underwent surgery in the fall to remove bone chips from his right elbow, a procedure that will keep the big right-hander off the mound when the Sox open spring training Feb. 15 in Glendale, Ariz. ''We'll bring him along in the second half of spring training,'' Williams said.