¡Señor Profundo!

All hail the power of the mighty Señor Profundo, Juan Uribe!

The diminutive Dominican now has 2 HR and 7 RBI in his last 4 games after smoking a grand slam in tonight's key fourth-inning against the Tigers. The Sox held on for a 7-4 victory, Mark Buehrle turning in another workman's effort with 8 innings and 3 runs allowed. He claimed he had better stuff than in his 8 shutout innings from last Saturday against the Jays. Whatever, it's consecutive wins for Buehrle and puts the Sox at 50 wins for the year as of August 3.

By comparision, here's sow long did it take them to reach 50 the past 8 seasons:

• 2006: June 27
  
• 2005: June 24
  
• 2004: July 22
  
• 2003: July 22
  
• 2002: July 28
  
• 2001: July 26
  
• 2000: June 30
  
• 1999: August 2
  

So the Sox are on pace for their worst year since the infancy of the Jerry Manuel era, when they went 75-86 (the franchise's last losing campaign). The way the offense has rebounded of late, particularly Jermaine Dye to the tune of .321 with 10 HR and 18 RBI since the All-Star Break, you'd like to think the Sox can piece more wins together and claw out 82 or 83. Part of me hopes they don't so I'll be spared the gnawing feeling I had all of last offseason regarding all the chances they blew to tack on so many more wins. I'd rather be hopelessly out of it then left to contemplate any "what ifs".

How To Give All The Copy Editors a Layup for a Headline...

...because if you can't come up with a way to work in "Crazy Eights" into the banner recap of today's second inning between the White Sox and Yankees, you clearly need to find another line of work.

I don't why I feel the urge to actually write down what happened with the Sox over these past three days in the Bronx, other than the feeling that maybe regurgitating it will make it hurt less. I don't think it's working. In any event, the Sox actually did a little lumber work of their own today, using a key Robinson Cano error to hang 8 runs on Roger Clemens, who was making his final start as 44-year old.

The snowman would've seemed like enough, but when Sox pitching has tossed 13 long-balls in 16 innings against the Bombers so far this year, you knew they had a run in them. Heck, you'd know that just by remembering this is the same team that allowed Cleveland to turn 11-2 into 11-10 with the go-ahead run on base - in the eighth inning! Surely the Sox bullpen would rear its ugly head once more, right?

Wrong. Oh, don't worry, this time it was starter Jon Garland's turn to get beat like a piñata, yielding 8 runs on 9 hits in just an inning and a third. But the Sox bullpen, awful as it is, rose to the challenge. After Boone Logan yielded an RBI double to Jorge Posada to knot the score at 8, he retired Cano to mercifully end the second after an even 60 minutes, 16 runs, 17 hits, and 90 pitches. It was just the second time in major league history that both the top and bottom of the same inning featured at least 8 runs being scored. It also seemed to serve as a call to arms for the Sox pen, as Logan, Matt Thornton, Ryan Bukvich, Mike MacDougal, and Bobby Jenks yielded five hits and 1 run (a Bobby Abreu solo shot in the sixth off Bukvich) over the final seven frames. Jermaine Dye and Paul Konerko supplied the power in the late innings for the Sox in what ultimately turned out a satisfying, if mentally exhausting, 13-9 win.

Final tally for the Yanks in the three game set: 15 home runs over 24 innings, yet not one of them by Alex Rodriguez. Multiple jacks for Shelly Duncan, a homer for Wilson Betemit in his Bronx debut, but no #500 for A-Rod. So the Sox can at least feel good about that.

Tomorrow: White Sox-Tigers, Mark Buehrle vs. Andrew Miller, 6:05 PM CDT.

13 Home Runs in 2 Games...

Amazingly, the White Sox pitching staff pulled this off without surrendering tater number 500 to Alex Rodriguez. It's always something, isn't it A-Rod. Can't share the spotlight ever, can you?

The tally (with one more game to go in the series tomorrow afternoon)...

Homers Hit -

Jorge Posada - 3

Robinson Cano - 2

Shelley Duncan - 2

Hideki Matsui - 2

Derek Jeter - 1

Bobby Abreu - 1

Melky Cabrera - 1

Johnny Damon - 1

Homers Thrown -

Jose Contreras - 3

Charlie Haeger - 3

Gavin Floyd - 3

John Danks - 3

Ryan Bukvich - 1

Dear Javy Vazquez: not like it matters in the grand scheme of things (48-59, 13 games out of first) but please...make it stop.

The whole season for the Sox is starting to remind me of a Toby Ziegler quip from "In The Shadow of Two Gunmen". During the flashback, one of the President's soon-to-be-former aides snarls at Toby, "Do you enjoy losing?" Toby deadpans back, "Not really - but then I don't have a lot to compare it to."

Trade? Who Said Anything About Trades?

Yesterday's non-waiver trade deadline came and went, and the Sox roster remained intact with the exception of The Gooch and Rob Mackowiak. So with the Sox electing to resign Mark Buehrle, not take a flyer on any offers for Jon Garland and Javy Vazquez, and refusing to budge from their expectations out of Jermaine Dye, where does this leave them? You be the judge, but if the recent rumors regarding a Dye extension are to be believed, then the 2008 squad may not be as radical of a makeover as I originally predicted.

Whaddya mean we haven't traded Contreras?!?!?

Frank Thomas - 500 Career Home Runs

It's been a fairly forgettable season for the Sox...check that, VERY forgettable. But a nice moment during this evening's 4-3 win as the organization again salutes the man who was THE franchise for 16 years, The Big Hurt, Frank Thomas. Enjoy the video which played during the first inning of tonight's game above. And take heart...Tadahito Iguchi has gone to a better place.

Maybe You Can Have It All...

"But as the philosopher Jagger once said, you can't always get what you want." -- Dr. Gregory House

Of course, as it turns out, when you try sometimes, you get what you need.

Mark Buehrle wanted a full guarantee that he wouldn't be going anywhere for at least another 4 years. Kenny Williams balked at the idea of shielding his top pitching commodity from any type of trade over that time, figuring that you can never say never. While for the longest time it looked like this was going to kill the deal, both sides FINALLY met each other in the middle and sealed the proposed 4-yr, $56 million deal with a proviso that if Buehrle is traded in that window from Opening Day 2009 thru July 2010, a fifth year at $15 million kicks in. In essence, Buehrle will cost the Sox an extra full year of salary to trade, so Kenny better be getting somebody REAL valuable if and when that ever happens.

This is a great moment for the Sox as a franchise, because they were able to wiggle out from a tough place and now have their two most popular players (Paul Konerko and Buehrle) locked up through 2010, along with a suddenly much-improved Javy Vazquez as well as Bobby Jenks. Now Williams can turn his attention towards other areas of the roster that need to be re-tooled. In order of importance:

1) Bullpen
2) Outfield, ALL 3 Positions
3) Third Base - attempt to keep Crede, or hand the job to Fields? Make the call sooner rather than later, Ken.
4) Bullpen
5) Bullpen
6) Shortstop - at least get Uribe a personal hitting coach
7) Bullpen
8) Second Base - minors are suddenly flush with options it seems; what becomes of the Gooch?
9) Bullpen

Are you noticing a theme yet?

Buehrle's back through 2011. Insert shout of joy here.

Didn't We Almost Have it All?

Baseball players tip their caps an awful lot. After dramatic home runs, emotional homecomings following a free-agent departure, at retirement ceremonies, at All-Star games, as an acknowledgement to those who've shelled out a lot of money (and a lot of their own emotional sanity) following one of the most mercurial games man has ever known. Pitchers tend to doff the cap the least, usually after an outstanding game that they can't quite finish, departing a potential shut-out in the 8th or 9th, saluting the fans and saying, "I almost took it all the way that time."

So there's never a bad side to a friendly tip of the cap, right? Tough to explain that to the legions of Sox fans who watched or tuned in to this sight with two out in the 8th inning of Monday's White Sox-Orioles contest...



Mark Buehrle made what was potentially his final start in a White Sox uniform on Monday night, and it was classic Buehrle - working fast, mixing speeds, baffling hitters with his 90-mph fastball, a good change, a nasty cutter, and pitching instincts that just cannot be taught. Not bad for a kid who got cut twice from his high school baseball team, only stuck with the sport because his dad made him, went to community college, got picked in what is universally regarded as the throwaway, career-minor-leaguer-if-you're-lucky portion of the MLB Draft (38th round), and was never in his quick rise through the Sox farm system regarded with anywhere near the reverence of a long-line of eventual busts in the White Sox organization...Kip Wells, Aaron Myette, Royce Ring, Jason Stumm, Josh Fogg, Matt Ginter, Kris Honel, Brandon McCarthy, Heath Phillips, Sean Tracey. Those guys were supposed to make it. Some of them have go on to lead the National League in losses, others to unspectacular careers in a variety of bullpens, and at least one of them has a permanent place in history as "the kid who Ozzie made cry". The point is you don't come as far as Buehrle has without being something special, owning something raw, something instinctual, something that all the "can-'t miss" kids are missing.

102 victories, a sparkling 3.79 career ERA that includes two horrendous half-seasons (one from April-June of 2003, the other from July-September of 2006), a no-hitter, a World Series ring to go with the odd accomplishment of starting one World Series game and saving the next, and a host of memories in between.

AND WE'RE GOING TO THROW ALL OF THIS AWAY OVER A NO-TRADE CLAUSE HE'LL HAVE ANYWAY IN LESS THAN THREE YEARS???

The White Sox can look all they want, but after seeing him pitch this year I think I know - they're not going to find another Buehrle for a long, long time. You can replace somebody like Jose Contreras, or somebody like Jermaine Dye. But for all the maxims about how "anybody can be replaced", how "there is no player who, if the price is right, can't be traded"...you can't tell me the Sox have any combination of pitchers ready to come in and duplicate what Buehrle's been giving you for the past seven seasons. Not with a straight face, anyway.

So now it all comes down to this, Mark and Kenny, alone in a sea of people, all watching to see who blinks first. There's a sort of tragic beauty to all of this, and not only because after Mark exited to a hero's ovation with a 6-2 lead did the Sox ticking-bomb bullpen turn it into a 7-6 loss that only further staked the Sox into "the land from which there is no hope of a dramatic second half surge". It was obvious to everyone that Buehrle could very well be on his way out, off to chase another championship in the fall and then even more with the security of a five or six year deal for 75-90 million from somewhere like St. Louis or New York or Los Angeles. The crowd knew it. And as he signified with a deliberate raise and salute of the cap, Buehrle knew it too.

Kind of reminds you of the cliffhanger ending to the "The Butter Battle Book" by Dr. Suess...

"Be careful Grandpa,
Be careful! Oh gee!
Who will drop it, will you or will he?"

We'll see. We will see.

The Quick and the Dead

Here lie the 2007 Chicago White Sox.

Sitting at 27-33 in baseball's toughest division, hitting only slightly better than the Mayfield School for the Blind, and now fully immersed in the biggest disaster of a bullpen in recent team history, the time has come to cut their losses. The end's not near, folks, it's here.

No Hits, No Runs...One Walk. Damn.

Mark Buehrle just tossed a freakin' no-hitter.

Are you listening Kenny Williams?

While the no-no will certainly kick-state the debate over whether the Sox should've just shown Buehrle the money in spite of his mediocre second half in 2006, I prefer to take the KW "Live in the moment" approach. Does nobody in Sox Nation realize this team probably has the most aggressive, instinctual, baseball-savvy GM not named Billy Beane? As evidenced by the fine start of John Danks vs. Brandon "7.56 ERA" McCarthy, as long Kenny sits in the GM chair, the franchise will have a stability and continuity that will rival what the Braves accomplished in the '90s and Oakland is accomplishing right now. Is that not enough?

Buehrle was pure magic on Wednesday night, using his trademark 89-MPH heat to simply be better than 27 hitters who stepped up to the dish. This was no cheapy of a no-hitter, featuring 9 walks or 3 wild pitches or 5 errors. Buerhle issued only one free pass the whole night, which he promptly erased when Sammy Sosa was caught napping at first. Once again the whole AL should take notice: run on Mark at your own risk. That's 48 pickoffs in his career. He led the majors in that category even in the midst of a below-average '06 season.

Of course Mark needed plenty of help behind him. He's not a power pitcher, which explains why he languished into the 38th round of the Draft. He'll let batters put the ball in play. They just usually don't know what to do with it once he does, particularly when he has the cutter working like he did on Wednesday. Joe Crede made an amazing play (and got the benefit of the doubt on an über-close call at 1st) on a Jerry Hairston bouncer down the line. Jermaine Dye used his 6'5" reach to pull back a Hank Blalock home run. Tadahito Iguchi made a terrific dive and throw to retire Blalock in the 5th. And Juan Uribe picked up Crede after he lunged and missed on an Ian Kinsler shot into the hole at short. Which begs the question - where the hell was that defense tonight, turning a 5-1 victory over the Tigers into a 5-4 nailbiter? Just goes to show the razor-thin difference between near-perfection and just another night at the ballpark.

The good news for the Sox isn't just that Buehrle tossed a no-hitter - it's that the pitching staff that was under so much scrutiny just two games into the season has quickly answered the bell and returned to the elite of the American League. Here's hoping the Sox bats kick it into gear soon - this 2007 campaign could be something special after all. It already has one keepsake moment.