It might be time for Dan Johnson

About 25 hours or so ago, I wrote a post decrying whinging about the composition of a bench. There were some good points made in the comments, mostly about the glorious mediocrity/redundancy/lack of necessity of one Orlando Hudson. And in a near and bleak future, the wish of a jettisoned O-Dog might be granted. If you're good at comprehending titles and headlines, you've noticed this post won't be arguing the relative merits of Dewayne Wise versus Jordan Danks and I applaud you for it.

The lineup for tonight's game has been revealed. Unsurprisingly, the mildly concussed Paul Konerko is not in the starting nine. While no official decision has been made as to whether he'll hit the disabled list or not, things are looking a bit grim. The White Sox do not have another day off until the 23rd. We've reached the part of the season that nagging injuries creep in and starters tend to need more time off. And unless we'd like to see the horror that was Wednesday night's lineup return, Kenny Williams and Robin Ventura might need to think about calling up Dan Johnson, the blandest man in Charlotte.

I wish Dan Johnson had a cool nickname, though I guess I wish that for every player with such a WASPy name. Alas, he does not. Johnson is a known entity at this point. He's a left-handed AAAA slugger that can't do much more than play 1B and DH. Yes, in theory he could play 3B in an emergency. But that would end poorly. He has a very limited skill set but what sets him apart from Orlando Hudson is that no one else on the bench really does what he does. Johnson can draw walks and hit the ball very hard. Not consistently, or he'd have a job, but he could ideally at least tread water for a week or two and maybe hit a signature homerun for us like he did for the Tampa Bay Rays last fall (September feels like fall even though it's not technically fall til near the end. I blame school for the association).

Or Brent Morel could start hitting in the minors allowing Kevin Youkilis to shift over the first base or DH and make everything a moot point.