Jon Garland blew a six-run lead to the Kansas City Royals. Facing 27 hitters, he only managed to induce four groundouts, and on a blustery night with two subs starting in the outfield, the Royals took advantage of some outfielding miscues to score 9 runs off Garland and two more runs off Matt Thornton.
There' s a roster question here. The White Sox are carrying three utility infielders (Ozuna, Mackowiak, and Cintron) and three first basemen (Thome, Konerko, and Gload). This leaves them with one competent backup outfielder (Mackowiak can play anywhere). No, I'm not pining for Timo Perez, but I think he probably catches that wind-aided "double" that was the linchpin of the 5-run KC inning. Fortunately, not every game will be played in howling spring windstorms.
This makes three horrible starts out of four from the White Sox' central asset, the rotation. Should we be worried?
Not yet. I haven't done a systematic study, but because of DirecTV's free preview of their fan-crack called MLB Extra Innings, I've seen a lot of games so far, and a lot of good pitchers are getting hammered -- Barry Zito for one. As a convenient excuse, I'm going to blame the so-called World Baseball Classis, which fouled up spring training routines for virtually every team.
That said, so far, the White Sox have 2003 Angels written on their foreheads... time to grab the washcloths and the Lava.
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