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Pizza, Pizza, Pizza; W, W, W?

For the first time this season, the White Sox were able to complete a 3-game sweep of an opponent won the first three games of a series. But who cares about that when there are tons of rumors and misinformation regarding Mark Buehrle's future status with the White Sox?

As far as I'm concerned, the most important sentence about the situation was written over 6 months ago.

Buehrle and Garcia both have one year left on their respective contracts, but Williams begged off a question Monday in regard to contract extensions being broached with either pitcher. It's an indirect approach Williams rarely takes, but he was honoring an agreement made with one of the two pitchers not to talk about the negotiations.
My conclusion at the time was that Buehrle and the Sox were working on an extension, and Buehrle wanted it kept out of the media. That same conclusion holds true today, with multiple media reports that the Sox and Buehrle are close to signing an extension, while Buehrle and his agent deny that there have been any talks. There's just too much smoke to be no fire.

I have no clue how long this thing is going to play out for, but one more obstacle was removed when Jose Contreras announced that he'd waive his no-trade clause (which was only good for this season) if the Sox wanted to move him. If Buehrle does sign an extension, it will almost certainly be followed by a trade of Contreras, most likely to the Mets for Lastings Milledge and maybe more.

I'll be very interested to see how everything plays out over the next few weeks, if for nothing else than to see which media outlets are being used as pawns by the Sox front office. At current, it appears, in particular, Joe Cowley has been used to inflate trade values and spread false info. But that could change if Buehrle is indeed signed to an extension.