Short entry.
I can't, in good conscience, get too worked up over Ozzie's decision to stick with Mark Buehrle in the 7th inning of Monday night's loss to the Angels. I was a little distracted trying to stop my own bleeding, hoping a trip to the ER wouldn't be necessary. (It wasn't.) Yet, I still have to wonder what Ozzie has seen from Buehrle the last two months that convinced him to stick with Mark late in the game.
Buehrle has shown a tendency to have even bigger innings than Five-and-Dive Vazquez, especially when things don't go his way, like, you know, two bunts in an inning. After the walk to Salmon, which some have interpreted as a bad call, Buehrle should have been lifted with a successful outing. 6.2 innings pitched with 3 runs scored on 5 hits (though 3 of those hits were longballs) is about as good as I think we can expect from Buehrle anymore. Buehrle might have left the game with a little more confidence after two consecutive solid outings.
Instead he was left to completely meltdown, as we've seen him do a number of times before. This time it was a balk that should have signaled his ultimate demise, but even that wasn't enough for Ozzie. He stuck with him long enough to put the game completely out of reach.
Offensive pitching
6, 7, 7, 8, 7, 4, 7 -- Those are the runs allowed by the White Sox for the last 7 losses.
In their last 7 victories they've allowed 1, 4, 5, 4, 11, 4, and 0 runs.
Obviously, you don't want to draw too many conclusions from such a small sample size, but I think this paints a pretty fair picture of the Sox troubles this year. Hold the opponent to reasonable number of runs, and the Sox offense will push across enough runs for a victory. Dig them a hole, and good luck.