Monday's ceaseless rain has caused yet another pitching crunch for the White Sox. Without an off-day between now and Tuesday's double-header, one of today's starters (Javier Vazquez or Clayton Richard) has to go on short rest in their next start, or the Sox have to call upon another option.
According to the Tribune's Mark Gonzales, Don Cooper "virtually ruled out" Aaron Poreda as an option, with Gonzales going on to cite the layoff since Poreda's final regular season start on 8/29 as a reason he isn't an option. Of course, for those of you who follow Larry's interminably-titled minor league threads, you know that Poreda pitched just a few days ago, on the 5th to be exact. He struck out 9 and walked 2 in 6 innings of 2-run ball in the Southern League playoffs.
The other options appear to be Lance Broadway (no, thanks) and DJ Carrasco, which would require the shift of some high-leverage bullpen work to Scott Linebrink and/or Mike MacDougal.
All of the options have their drawbacks. Javy pitching on short rest might require a quick hook and a rare economical effort from him on Tuesday. Carrasco would need to be given a few days of buffer on either side of Saturday where he was unavailable from the pen. Broadway would require the purchase of some revolutionary new padded uniforms for our defenders. And Poreda would be making his major league debut in the middle of playoff race.
All of this is my way of saying, 'hey, we needed something to talk about this morning following an off-day. Why not this?'