When you’re a White Sox fan, you expect the worse. A week ago, I thought that there was no way they could blow this lead. While I still feel the White Sox are a lock to make the playoffs, I’m getting a bad feeling. I’ve had it before, and you Sox fans know what I’m talking about.
The White Sox were swept in their three game series with the Twins. Normally this series would have meant something, but with the Twins mediocrity and the White Sox early run up in the standings, it was more of a formality. The fact that they dropped all three games and have lost five in a row has this Sox fan a little worried.
It’s amazing how much we rely on our starting pitching. With Monday as an example, the Twins tagged starter Jose Contreras for four runs in the fourth. With this teams offense, a four run deficit is almost insurmountable. We need the gems. The Sox did scrape together two runs on a Juan Uribe single and Jermaine Dye sac. flybut it wasn’t nearly enough. Kyle Lohse and the Twins pen held the Sox to eight singles and a double.
Tuesday we had the tables turned on us. All year we’ve managed to put together comebacks, but this time we were on the receiving end. We took a 4-3 lead on a two run Timo Perez double, but the almost always reliable Dustin Hermanson blew his second game of the season by letting Michael Cuddyer go deep. Seven innings later (in the 16th), the Twins exploded for five runs off of Jon Adkins. In all, they used eight pitchers.
Yesterday was more of the same. The Twins jumped out to an early 5-0 lead and never looked back. Johan Santana took a no hitter into the seventh inning and all we could manage was a Paul Konerko solo homer in the bottom of the ninth. Mark Buehrle was tagged for two homers as he dropped his sixth game of the season.
It doesn’t get any easier. We have today off before the Yankees come into town. We handled them well last week, but we obviously need to play better. I think at this point, anything short of a World Series is a failure. And while I expect to make the playoffs easily, we’re not playing like a playoff team right now.
