Trouble Brewin'

Rangers 3, White Sox 1.

Seven of Eight. Nine of Eleven. The losses keep piling up, the fans keep getting madder...and if the season ended today, the Sox would STILL be in the playoffs.

Not that the last part means anything. It is refreshing to see that a championship hasn't softened up the Sox fanbase any - can you imagine what it would be like right now if they HADN'T won the World Series in 2005? Ozzie would have been fired in the minds of the average Sox fan by now.

But still, when Mark Buehrle is getting booed off the mound, you know all is not right in the City of Sox. It's pretty simple - revamped offense or not, this Sox club will still sink or swim on the strength of its starting pitching. And that commodity has been maddeningly incosistent since the calender turned over to July. Buehrle has lost all four starts this month and looked awful doing so. Contreras has been tagged with his first two losses. Javy Vazquez remains bedeviled by the "one big inning". Freddy Garcia can toss 7 innings of 1-run ball, then get torched in the first inning of his next start. And Jon Garland is as much of a mystery for how consistent he's been since that interleague start in Cincinnati.

Rumors abound that the Sox are preparing to wheel and deal in the trade market - Scott Podsedink for Alfonso Soriano, Brian Anderson & Josh Fields for Andruw Jones, Garcia for Tom Gordon, Vazquez for Scott Linebrink. When Kenny Williams has something to report Sox fans, he'll let us know. Until then keep your damn traps shut.