Embarrassing Effort

Just how bad is Jake Woods?

• Entering tonight's game, he had a career WHIP of 1.55.
  
• In his 20 career outings of 2 innings or more, he only once posted a WHIP under 1 for the game.
  
• In his 20 career outings of 2 innings or more, he has only held his opponents walkless once. That opponent, not surprisingly, was the Chicago White Sox.
  

Tonight, Mr. Woods pitched 7 innings of scoreless baseball, allowing just 5 hits and no walks. That's right, a pitcher who only once his major league career has held his opponent to fewer baserunners than innings pitched, shut out the White Sox while allowing only 6 runners to reach base, one of which he hit in the head.

This wasn't a case of a pitcher just having all of his pitches working, or a case of Anything Can Happen In Baseball. This was symptomatic of a White Sox team that routinely makes no-name lefties look like Cy Young. This was a team that had given up.

In his post game press conference, Ozzie said he was embarrassed about the way the team played, embarrassed at the effort they gave Vazquez, embarrassed that fans had to pay to see that crap.

Paul Konerko, Jim Thome, Jermaine Dye, Joe Crede, AJ Pierzynski, Juan Uribe, and Tadahito Iguchi all appear to be done trying to do anything but hit the ball out of the park. Not surprisingly, the Sox last produced a run without the HR in the 7th inning on Sunday. 4 games ago.

There's no way to sugarcoat the way this team has played for the last month. The offense has been absolute garbage. Truthfully, the offense has been terrible since the All-Star break.

• As a team, the Sox hit .198/.304/.352 in the first inning.
  
• 4 spots in the lineup combined to post sub-.300 OBPs in the second half.
  • Leadoff hitters batted .243/.290/.318
  • #6 hitters (mostly occupied by AJ Pierzynski) batted .228/.278/.394.
  • #7 hitters batted .238/.259/.414
  • #8 hitters batted .243/.275/.391.
  • Those 4 spots have combined for a .238/.276/.377 with 25 double plays in the second half.
  It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out why the Sox managed just 4.7 Run/Game in the second half after scoring almost 6 per in the first half. The blame does not fall solely on Scott Podsednik.

Despite the fact that the guys he keeps running out on the field continue to swing at slop, Ozzie says he's going to play them until they are officially eliminated from the race. I'd be willing to bet he'll also play Joe Crede for as long as it takes to reach 30 HR and 100 RBI, even though the front office likes to claim that the Sox don't care about personal statistics.