Black Sox Blog

The White Sox lost another spring game yesterday and Javier Vazquez was outpitched by Claudio Vargas.  Vazquez threw six innings and he gave up seven hits, two walks and he struck out four.

The White Sox offense really struggled and managed only five hits.  Joe Crede doubled home the lone White Sox run in the second inning and Jim Thome doubled.  The good news was that Bobby Jenks threw a perfect eighth inning.  With Dustin Hermanson still questionable, we need all the arms we can get in the pen.

The White Sox set their opening day roster yesterday.  One of the big surprises of the spring has been Boone Logan, which has made for an interesting story.  Logan has just four minor league appearances above rookie ball, and those four appearances were at the White Sox high A minor league affiliate, the Wiston-Salem Warthogs.  And even there he was roughed up to the tune of three run, seven hits and four walks in 5 1/3 innings.

His spring has been great though.  He’s given up only a single run and five hits in 11 1/3 innings.  He’s struck out five and walked two.  And that’s what’s earned him a spot on the big league team.  I’m a little skeptical as to how he’ll do once the realy season starts, but it makes for a great story and I wish him the best.

Jose Contreras threw four solid innings in a Triple A game yesterday.  This is solid news because he had missed his March 15 because of a sore arm.  I know we have Brandon McCarthy waiting in the wings, but I’d like to go into the season with our “main” rotation in shape.

On the other hand, Dustin Hermanson threw an inning on Friday and he’s supposed to throw another today.  Regardless, it doesn’t look like Hermanson will be ready for the start of the season so Bobby Jenks will most likely be the closer heading into opening day.

The White Sox were blasted by the Giants yesterday, although most of the pitchers weren’t names you’ll recognize.  Tyler Lumsden got the start and lasted only 2/3 of inning before giving up seven runs.  Armando Almanza was even worse.  He gave up six runs in 1/3 inning.  That drops the White Sox spring record down to 6-18.  This last week will be telling as more and more regulars will play longer and the starters will throw five or six innings.  Jon Garland throws for the Sox today in their game against the White Sox.

Jon Garland was hit pretty hard yesterday in almost six innings of work.  Looks like the starters will now be going five to six innings a start until the season opens up.  Garland gave up six runs (five earned) on thirteen hits in 5 2/3 innings of work.  In all, White Sox pitchers gave up 10 runs and eighteen hits, and the Sox dropped to 5-15 on the season.  The White Sox play the Rockies this afternoon with Mark Buehrle throwing against Jeff Francis.

Joe Crede has been all over the place in the lineup.  He’s hit as high as cleanup and yesterday he hit sixth.  According to him, the lineup shifting doesn’t bother him too much, as you’d think it wouldn’t.  You’re going up there to hit the same way regardless of whether you’re fourth in the lineup or ninth.

Dustin Hermanson is supposed to throw on the side today after he got an epidural shot in his back yesterday.  If he looks like he’s throwing fine, he’ll throw against minor leaguers tomorrow.

Man am I glad that these games don’t count.  The White Sox have the day off today and they sure need it.  They lost again yesterday, this time to the Rockies and Jose Contreras was MIA because of a sore tricep.  Bobby Jenks was shelled to the tune of three runs in one inning but the rest of the usual suspsects in the pen seemed to be having a decent season.

Contreras is having a great spring and he’s one of the bright lights in a rough stretch.  He’s thrown ten innings and has a 14/0 strikeout to walk ratio.  Brandon McCarthy has had a couple of rough starts but Mark Buehrle’s had some quality starts.

Scott Podsednik and Dustin Hermanson are also on the shelf.  Podsednik has a sore right shoulder and Hermanson has a sore back.  Hermanson is scheduled to throw on the side tomorrow so hopefully we see some improvement.

The White Sox are now 3-9 this spring, near the bottom of the Cactus League.  They dropped their game against the Angels this afternoon and once again they had a hard time getting hits, much less putting runs on the board.  It’s the fifth time this spring they’ve scored two runs or less and today it was against rookie Jared weaver.

Mark Buehrle had a great game.  He went five innings and gave up only four hits.  He was replaced with Dustin Hermanson, who proceeded to give up three runs in the sixth.  Tim Redding was also hit hard and gave up three runs in his one inning.  The Sox take on Oakland tomorrow, although Frank Thomas isn’t scheduled to play.

Ryan Sweeney and non-roster invitee Josh Fields lead the team with three home runs. Fields is having a particularly good spring and five of his six hits (in 13 at bats) have been for extra bases.  He also leads the team with six RBIs.  Sweeney’s hitting .421 with an .895 slugging (in 19 at bats) and he’s tied with Jerry Owens with five runs.

Black Sox Blog favorite Joe Crede is having a pretty rough spring.  In seventeen at bats, he has two hits and he’s driven in only one run.

Fielder Jones began his career in the National League and played for the Brooklyn Bridegrooms (later called the Superbas).  In the winter of 1900, he signed with the White Sox and joined the upstart American League.  He was the White Sox best hitter in the league’s inaugural season and he helped the White Sox win their first pennant that year.  Two years later, the White Sox had dropped deep into second division of the American League and in 1904, Jones was tapped as the White Sox manager.

Player/managers were a lot more common back then and the team gradually improved under Jones.  They finished in third place in 1904, which was the year Jones took over for Nixey Callahan.  In 1905, the White Sox finished in second place and then in 1906, Fielder Jones led the team to their first World Series title.

By 1906, Jones hitting ability was beginning to regress although he kept up with the rest of the league.  He finished the season with a .230 batting average, and ironically that was also the team’s batting average as well.  But he finished second in the league in walks and ended up with a slightly above average OPS+ of 106.

The other thing Fielder Jones was good at, and he instilled this into his team, was bunting.  He led the league in sac. hits in 1904 with 36 and in 1906, he was sixth in the league (behind two teamates) with 30.  This team couldn’t hit, so it had to make its baserunners count and the team led the American League with 226 sac. hits.

Fielder Jones was also an excellent centerfielder.  1906 was the second of four consecutive seasons that Fielder Jones would finish with at least 25 Fielding Runs Above Average.  In 1906, he had 23 outfield assists and only four errors.

If you want to read more about Fielder Jones, I highly recommend you check out his biography at SABR’s Baseball Biography Project website.

Here are Jones’ numbers in 1906

Games 144
AB 496
Runs 77
Hits 114
Doubles 22
Triples 4
Homeruns 2
RBIs 34
Walks 83
Strikeouts ??
Stolen Bases 26
Caught Stealing ??
BA .230
OBA .346
SLG% .302
OPS .648
RC 70
RCAA 12
RCAP 3
RC/G 4.42
ISO .073

Chris Widger hit two homeruns and Paul Konerko went deep once and drove in four runs as the White Sox topped the Athletics 8-5.  Mark Buerhle had a rough outing but the offense picked him up as the White Sox improved to 2-6 in the exhibition season.

Here’s a solid column on the comeback attempts of Brian West and Charles Haeger.  And then there’s this on Joe Borchard.

Thankfully, these games don’t count.  The White Sox didn’t have a six game losing streak in all of 2005 and here they find themselves 0-6 through the first week of spring games.  Ozzie Guillen isn’t happy with the start and today, the White Sox dug themselves a hole they couldn’t get out of against the Diamondbacks.  Down 6-1, the Sox scored two in the eighth and two in the ninth but couldn’t manage to tie things up.  It’s mostly offense.  The White Sox are averaging less then three runs a game, and if you go down the individual player stats, you don’t see too many standouts.

This is old, but a week ago, Baseball Analysts began their Two on Two division previews with the AL Central.  The White Sox finally got some representation as Cheat from South Side Sox joined Aaron Gleeman as they looked at the division.  Last year, nobody really gave the White Sox any consideration.  Three of the four participants picked the Sox to win the AL Central and only Rich Lederer went with the Indians.

The White Sox travel to play Colorado tomorrow.  Jon Garland will get the start.  I signed up for MLB.com’s Gameday Audio so I can listen to my team (I’m currently working on an out of town job in Nebraska and I live in Northern Michigan) but unfortunately they don’t allow streaming audio at work so I’ve had to miss the weekday games.

I’ve been continuing to work on the 1906 White Sox diary and man, were games different back then.  Even the box scores take some getting used to (RBIs didn’t exist in the statistical sense).  I should have the next installment of the player retrospectives up some time this week.

Everybody together now.  I want to hear a great, big…..

IT DOESN’T MATTER!!!!

On the other hand, it’s great to have baseball back.  The White Sox and Rockies kicked off the real spring season (several teams have had exhibition games) and the White Sox bats didn’t show up.  Jerry Owens (??) tripled and scored in the ninth to account for the only White Sox run and Jermaine Dye and Rob Mackowiak both had singles.

Jose Contreras threw three innings and gave up a two run homer that ended up being the difference.  Jon Garland gave up a run but he forced seven of his nine outs were ground balls.  Javier Lopez, Arnie Munoz and Cahrlie Haeger all took the mound for the Sox as well.

I purchased the Gameday Audio package but unfortunately, work is kind of picky about streaming anything so I could listen to the game.  You can check out the highlights here.