The best thing I can say about Saturday night's game is that the White Sox won. Given the way this team has been playing recently, I'll take it. But they didn't look any different than what we've seen the past two weeks. They simply built a lead that was so large that even our struggling bullpen couldn't blow it. They sure tried to though.
- Neal Cotts appears to be much like '04 Cliff Politte. He's often very effective in his first inning of work, but after sitting on the bench for a half inning, he loses his touch.
- Politte is another story. He's been terrible, and shows no signs of improving. He doesn't pitch inside. He's missing a few miles per hour on his fastball, and has no confidence in that pitch. So, he throws nothing but sliders low and away to right-handers.
- I HATE using four pitchers in an inning. It makes my blood boil. When one of those pitchers is Politte and the inning is the 8th, my speech actually comes out in cartoon bubble form "$&#*@!"
- The Sox have only one righty in the pen who can consistently get batters out, Bobby Jenks. And Ozzie will only use him in a save situation, or late in a tie game. With Ozzie's penchant for playing the lefty-righty matchups, that leaves a a ton of opportunities for our other right-handers to blow the game.
What I don't understand is if Bobby Jenks is good to go 4 outs, with the go ahead run at the plate for a save, why can't he go 6 outs with the tying run due up third?
- The White Sox scored 7 runs in an inning that featured a sacrifice bunt on the same day that Ozzie 'grilled his troops' on the finer points of bunting. They scored zero runs, and had zero baserunners in the innings that followed, which featured zero bunts. Coincidence? I think not. Ross Gload is the best bunter on the planet.