Sox Populi Podcast 142 — Early State of the Sox

A couple of weeks in and finally shedding some of the preview/pregame/postgame podcasts for a bit, it’s time for the mothership to take off again — this time, with a weird duck stowing away throughout. Darren Black, Malachi Hayes, Melissa Sage-Bollenbach and Brett Ballantini got together for a gut-check on where the team’s at. Hang around, because while you might not see Joe Resis, you may catch some Good Vibes (hey Jacki!) by the end of the show.

• The lineup: Darren in old-school Intimidators cap, Malachi rocking the ’59 Sox cap, Brett donning Bob Marley but with just one operating ear, and Melissa in self-professed Friday the 13th gear chosen especially for the fan-murdering nature of this early Sox season
• Yes, Joe Resis was also inked to appear on this podcast, but he either got locked in the green room, or was just enjoying the snacks so much, he never arrived. Darren even left a few times to try to go find him
• Yes, there was some chuckling over David Roth’s Defector piece that pretty well captures the demolition derby nature of this White Sox team, even after we’d been told that fundamental play — the basics of baseball, if you will — were drilled throughout Spring Training
• Injuries. Yep. Well, we talk about ’em. Guys won’t be out forever
• The yin-yang of this year’s pitching rotation does have us stumped. On one hand, it has the potential to lead a team to the playoffs (Malachi) or be hot-cold for 162 games (Darren)
• LUIS ROBERT. Brett gets simmered down a bit from the MVP talk
• The Positive Vibrations portion of the podcast brought it all home

Listen below, on our built-in Megaphone player:

or follow along with every episode at Apple Podcasts or Spotify, or wherever you consume your podcasts. You can also watch the podcast on the Sox Populi YouTube channel.