Champions: Sympathy for the Beancounters

Why the statheads (and I) got it wrong comes down to two mistakes:

1) I misread the Go-Go PR as grand strategy, and missed the real point, like almost everybody else;

2) There is a difference between players like (say) AJ Pierzynski and players like Ben Davis, not just in their own performances, but in what they expect from and coax out of others

The Strategy

Conventional stathead analyses of baseball start with the assumption that wins and losses are directly a result of runs scored and allowed, following several formulas, the best known of which is Bill James’ Pythagorean formula.

My pet theory is that the obsession with grand totals and consequent averages (whether they be Equivalent or On Base) loses the key concept of standard deviation.

I believe the White Sox quite intentionally built a team with a relatively lower game-to-game deviation of runs scored and an intentionally wider deviation of runs allowed. Kenny was very public about this. I don't know that anybody ever really set out to do this (although the Twins stumbled into it for a couple of years), but I am pretty sure Kenny Williams is very aware of what he did, and I think it may be a surefire way to beat “Pythagoreas” because it invalidates the precept that runs are randomly distributed along the normal curve. The risk is you won’t score enough runs to win any games, a risk the White Sox flirted with in September but only then.

To understand my hypothesis, you have to realize that most pitchers with a 4.50 ERA don't allow 3 runs every 6 innings. They usually allow 1 or 2, punctuated by a 4 here and a 7 there, but not nearly as often. We see this happen all the time with rookie soft tossers for the other team and wonder why Joe Blow from Cuba Mo can shut the White Sox down. It's because that is in fact a pretty normal pattern. My hypothesis is you actually WANT pitchers who blow up once a month (we’ll call him Freddy Mercury) but otherwise dominate instead of one who is consistent (we’ll call him Steady Eddie Average), because the first class of pitcher will actually win more often despite having identical total and average statistics. Guys who blow up once a month are easier to find than guys who consistently put up mediocre numbers because most baseball teams are actually LOOKING for the pitcher who is consistently average and get frustrated with the Mercury types.

This grand strategy won't work if you bring in five relief pitchers a game, because you increase the probability than one of the middle guys will end up blowing the game, but it does work if your starters usually go 7. It only works for STARTING pitchers, who control the outcome of any given game more often than not.

Here's the thing -- this strategy works by leveraging guys who are undervalued by the market, a la Moneyball. It won't ever show up in computerized simulations because they all use a Monte Carlo model for pitching performance -- random numbers -- which assumes that a player is some permutation of his stat-generating-robot counterpart in cyberspace. He's not; he's a human being operating more or less at the edge of an infinitely sheer precipice of failure.

Baseball as viewed by Baseball Prospectus and the East Coast, is a war of attrition, like World War I, fought by artillery duels between huge sluggers driving in baserunners who often walked. The White Sox played a game more akin to precision air strikes and infiltration ground tactics. (Their latest book, Mind Game, does include a paragraph pointing out that Pythagoreas may be an oversimplification.)

We statheads missed because we didn’t understand that Kenny was looking to exploit one of the quirks of the game – that runs don’t carry over, that losing by a lot is no different than losing by a little. We confused what he was advocating with true, 1960s small ball, and because sabermetric orthodoxy tells us that this is a poor decision, we bought it. He couched it in go-go smallball terms as a PR move. Most White Sox fans believe in the holy trinity of pitching, speed, and defense. They let us project that onto what they were doing.

The Players

Last November 10th, I wrote an email to the WHITESOX mailing list bewailing the White Sox offseason strategy. What they were doing, it seemed to me, was insane. As it turned out, what they were ended up doing was the opposite of what I feared, while they hit the nail on the head for every single one of my “imaginings”.

First, to be fair, Kenny didn’t do all of it intentionally. He was saved from himself by the Giants adding a third season to Omar Vizquel’s offer. He was saved from himself by the Red Sox and other teams bidding up mediocre pitchers and ignoring the brittle but still cagey El Duque. He benefited from the Angels’ giving up on Bobby Jenks. He benefited from the Giants’ second mistake, releasing A. J. Pierzynski without a really good reason.

In early November, the White Sox had Ben Davis catching, no right fielder except perhaps Alex Escobar, no second baseman, no fifth starter, questionable 3 and 4 starters, and a bullpen with several very iffy characters. So what happened?

They dumped Carlos Lee for bullpen depth and official stathead dart board Scott Podsednik. I really thought at the time this was about freeing up money (which it was) and ridding the team of a problem personality (it was). It also gave the White Sox dual centerfielders, at the expense of some big-bang offense, and improved what I can only call the presence-of-mind on the field. Carlos was widely believed to be a stathound, the biggest one on the team.

After the Giants’ aforementioned brain freeze, they signed Jermaine Dye to fill the right field hole and Dustin Hermanson as an insurance policy for two spots. Dye was a risk given his injury history but not a terrific one. Hermanson was a career mediocrity, but one with the big-inning quirk I mentioned before. Then came Pierzynski, El Duque, and most shockingly, Tadahito Iguchi. What happened was a methodical upgrade of every major hole in the roster to at least an adequate player and, in almost every case, a good one.

They had clearly improved the defense without crippling the offense.

But it wasn't just that. It was also the fact that, with no exceptions, they added red asses. Of the additions, Dye was the closest thing to laid back. The rest of them wanted, more than anything else, to win. The image of 2005 is A. J. Pierzynski, by hook or by crook, getting 100% out of every situation. And, while character can't cover up a lack of talent, it can definitely get the most out of talent.

WS +3: The Best Of Times...

I admit I didn't stay up to see it, and I also admit saying an Aaron-Rowand-like "no way! No Way! NO WAY!" when checking the score this morning...

No way!

WS +1: The Miseducation of Joe Sheehan

Instead of over-analyzing last night's game, instead I want to ask the question: How did the analysts, specifically Baseball Prospectus (BP), get the White Sox so wrong this year? Now, they have an answer, "luck", but that just doesn't wash given the incredible gap between what they said in their book this year and what actually happened. I think I have the answer, but explaining it takes some background.

First, you have to understand the history of sabermetrics a little bit. Sabermetrics is a term coined by Bill James to encompass the whole idea of studying questions about baseball using statistics. James didn't invent the concept, it's as old as baseball and Henry Chadwick keeping score in the 19th century. Many systems have been proposed over the years, from Earnshaw Cook's DX to Tom Boswell's Total Average to Pete Palmer's Linear Weights (LWTS) to Bill James' many metrics to BP's collection of formulas.

With that said, here's why BP screwed up:

Attitude. Bill James wrote books that were essentially academic papers. He would pose the question, describe the framework used to address the question in full (including formulas), attempt to answer the question, and then open the floor (conceptually) to objections and review. BP doesn't do this, really; their formulas are largely proprietary (because they make money selling information to many sources), and they don't really brook review of their methods or conclusions. BP's attitude is more Papal than academic, an attitude which leads to error through the age-old idea of hubris. The White Sox don't fit BP's concept of how to run a baseball team, so they must be bad. When their own formulas showed a better outcome than their guts, they went with their guts. When their formulas emitted transparently bizarre predictions, they stuck by their formulas, as long as they fit their assumptions.

Appearance of Conflict of Interest. Further, because the White Sox don't fit their concept (and presumably don't buy their private analysis products), they trashed them in public, which is analogous to the brokerage scandals of a few years back (but, admittedly, however, not harmful to the public in any way). The teams BP singles out for praise are, predictably, the teams that employ their authors and friends. As BP is largely a Chicago-born institution and the Chicago teams ignore them could be a cause for simple spite. Further, obviously success by any organization that doesn't follow the basic BP program could be perceived by the public as undermining the credibility of their otherwise entertaining and shrewd product.

Methodology. Plainly put, much of BP's work derives from Pete Palmer's work, and Palmer's methodology was, I believe, flawed by the basic, mistaken assumption that baseball is close enough to a linear process to be analyzed as such. James noticed early that baseball isn't linear, his formulas aren't linear, and his results were better. BP drank the Total Baseball Kool-Aid -- or we think they did; we'll never know because they don't really let us see their process. One example is the focus on replacement players, who are essentially strawmen; the goal is not to collect players better that AAA players, the goal is to win as often as possible.

Observability. Baseball has dozens of individual statistics that are collected at every level, and analyzed and over-analyzed. It also has dozens of events that happen on the field every game that go unrecorded because there's no statistic to cover them. It has no realistic way to distinguish intent. When a batter grounds to second to advance a runner to third base, no statistic is really kept, and if one were, no framework exists to evaluate it. BP's approach to this problem is age-ol, assuming that if we can't measure it, it must all even out in the end.

So, because they couldn't understand the Carlos Lee trade in their analytical framework, and couldn't account for the possibility that Jose Contreras' failures in Yankee Stadium not being correctable, and so on and so forth, BP allocated 82-odd wins to the White Sox, and Joe Sheehan predicted a 90-loss season for a team that has now won 107 games and counting and has a tenuous one-game lead in the World Series. When confronted time and time again with the fact that something went wrong in the system to make that grade of mistake, the responses amount to: (1) they were lucky, (2) they were lucky, (3) their luck will run out, and (4) they are really lucky. That excuse made the grade in May, BP, but now we're in late October and you need better ones.

The real answer is you can't predict run prevention because your defensive/fielding analysis is just as bad as everyone else's. For a business that makes money based on the promise that they can predict the future, that is what you call a severe downward indicator.

World Series break: Pinch me!

We still don't know which team will face the White Sox in the Series, but we do know one thing: writers and analysts will mess up the comparison because they constantly forget that ERAs aren't comparable between the two leagues. An ERA in St. Louis of 3.60 is about the same as an ERA of 4.00 for an American League starter, and a Houston ERA of 3.50 is about the same as a 4.00 for a Chicago starter. The principal reasons for this all relate to the use of the DH, both in weakening the opposition starter and getting NL pitchers out of the game before they are completely gassed. The Astro and Cardinal pitching staffs are good, but their real numbers are significantly below the White Sox numbers.

ALCS 3-1: In the a[la]rms of the Angels...

How many Angels can dance around like pinheads?

The Angels and some of their fans, as well as the Fox rally monkeys, would like you to believe that the only reason the Angels are the ones down 3-1 is blown calls by the umpires.

The fact is, though, that there's an element of old-fashion boneheadedness at work.

Consider the Finley double play last night. Here are the facts: the Angels had runners on first and third with one out. Steve Finley's bat hit A. J. Pierzynski's mitt during his swing, which the umpires did not notice, and Finley hit a grounder to Iguchi. Finley spent part of the time he was running to first half-turned to the home plate umpire pleading his case.

From the time that Finley hit the ball, there were three reasonable outcomes possible:

• The umpire could have called catcher interference, sending the runner on third back and loading the bases with out for Adam Kennedy in a 3-1 game. The expected number of runs from this scenario is 1.52, with 0 being possible.
  
• Finley could have run full-speed to first base, certainly beating Uribe's relay, while a run scored from third base, leaving a runner on first with two out and a run scored to make it 3-2. The expected number of runs from this scenario is 1.24, with the 1 being certain.
  
• Finley could do what he did, inning over, no runs scored.

Finley arguing the call before the play completed was plain-and-simple stupid. His beating out the throw to first base was only somewhat less advantageous to the Angels in the big ball sense than the catcher interference call, and in the small ball sense (which is how the Angels play) it was probably dead even. Angel paranoia about the umpiring cost them one sure run. The call itself may have cost them more runs, but maybe not, given that Garcia struck out both Adam Kennedy and Chone Figgins in their next at bats.

Then there were the two calls on the bases on Podsednik, which were both close and amounted to one insurance run.

The Fox-fueled controversy in Game Two has an equally simple three-plausible-outcomes scenario:

• Pierzynski could have been called out on a clean catch. Despite Tim McCarver's incessant repetition, the "fact" that Jose Paul caught the strike on the fly was not conclusively established by the replay.
• Paul could have tagged Pierzynski, who stood there for an instant, ending the inning.
• Pierzynski gets first on the error.

Once Pierzynski was on first and the pinch runner Pablo Ozuna was in place, there was no law of physics guaranteeing that Ozuna would steal second; that happened because Escobar did a poor job of holding the runner and Josh Paul didn't try a throw. There was no guarantee that Crede would hit a two-strike double to left field off a hanging breaking ball. There certainly was no guarantee that the Angels would score in the tenth or any other inning, given that they are scoring two runs a game in the series. The was no guarantee that the back end of the Angel bullpen would stop Chicago from scoring in the bottom of the tenth inning. Game Two boiled down to Scioscia's decision to use his regular catcher as a DH to stack the lineup with righthanded batters causing him to play his third-string catcher.

The Angels and Fox want you to believe that they haven't gotten a call in the series, which is not true, and I don't just mean the Iguchi neighborhood play last night. In Game One, the Angels got a huge break when the second-base umpire failed to call Orlando Cabrera out for interference on his rolling block on a DP. This caused Iguchi to throw the relay over Konerko's head and allowed the third run in a 3-2 game to score. The got a break in Game Two when much-vilified plate umpire Doug Eddings over-eagerly punched out Paul Konerko on a checked swing in the sixth with nobody out against Scot Sheilds and a 3-2 pitch without asking the first base umpire for help; replays showed (much more conclusively than in the Paul pitch) that he did not go around. The next batter, Carl Everett, was called out on a very low pitch. A runner on first with nobody out is a much more dangerous situation than with two out, and other than pointing out that the call was blown, Fox didn't play that up.

Personally, I hope the Angels keep it up. It means they think they've lost.

ALCS entrants: Wildest Dreams

It's been a long time since I rock 'n' rolled... writer's block.

All I can say now is, it's just gravy.

74-45: Cut the kids in half

A lot of people don’t understand it, but I think Thomas breaking his foot again was a terrible blow to the team, you know they haven’t been the same since. The GM and manager don’t get it, but if you read the quotes from the players, they definitely were playing April and May with abandon and the feeling that Frank would be back and help finish the job, and since his re-injury, the team has played a lot like the demoralized way they did last year after Magglio and Frank got hurt. Now with him gone and the inevitable nagging injuries, the ridiculous bench consisting of Pablo Ozuna, T.I.M.O., Geoff Blum, and Chris Widger is exposed, unable to contribute any meaningful offense, and the team sinks under the collective bilge they’ve accumulated.

The good news is books will be written about this season. The bad news is they will be gothic horror novels.

67-35: Let me introduce you to the end

Between vacation, business travel, and a general lack of belief that anyone will ever read this, the Razor has lacked any motivation to blog... until now, with the end game in sight.

• Frank Thomas is done for the year and probably for his White Sox career after suffering yet another fracture of a bone in his left foot. This time, allegedly, it's the navicular, the same little bone that nags as Alex Escobar's career. It's too early to write the eulogy for his career, but let me say he was the best righthanded hitter of the 1990s, a clear Hall of Fame ballplayer, but he will probably have to sweat out his induction because of his lackluster defense at first and the permanent damage done to his career and reputation by his injuries, the relationship with former Sox manager Jerry Manuel, and the interplay between the two.
  

• The White Sox have taken the first two from the Orioles after that shocking news about Frank Thomas. El Duque pitched well, and the bullpen's been great, but the White Sox are definitely a Big Ball team right now, having put up 7 and 9 runs on the slumping Oriole pitching staff.
  

• The long slog 'til October has begun. I have to admit it is enormously entertaining to listen to the Minnesota Twins radio broadcasts as they fall further behind. Tonight, though, on ESPN, one writer commented that the Twins still believe they can catch the White Sox if they can just land Alfonso Soriano. Sure. They just lost again and are now 13 1/2 games back with 59 to play. The rumored trade is Bret Boone, J. C. Romero, and Kyle Lohse to the Rangers for Soriano. I hope it goes through, because it would sink the Twins and help Texas, a doubly good thing for a North Texas resident who is a White Sox fan.
  

53-24: Everybody Have Fun Tonight

Johnny Mostil is headed for a much needed vacation beside a quiet lake in the middle of nowhere, but he goes on the vacation with his beloved Sox 29 games over .500 at 53-24 after 77 games after Freddy Garcia dominated the Detroit Tigers 6-1 on Thursday afternoon. The Sox head to Oakland with what Jim Baker in Baseball Prospectus called an 'unscre[w]able pooch'. And unscrewable it is -- no team has blown a 10-game lead in, well, forever. Even Torii Hunter conceded the race a few games ago.

So now comes the question: is the Jason Schmidt rumor the Chicago Tribune is promoting actually true? Now, Jason's having some trouble this year, but man, he is one hell of a pitcher and acquiring him would be the end of worrying about the Cubans.

The White Sox were 18-7 in June.

51-24: In the Humdrum

The White Sox, with a 9 1/2 game lead, are making the season, well, pleasantly humdrum...

Mark Buerhle has been a good pitcher for several years, but so far he's having the best season of his career. Last night was no exception to his recent record as he shut down the Tigers, letting in just one run, and notched his 10th win against only one loss. (His only loss, of course, was the ESPN Sunday Night game against Santana early in April.) He needed some help with the White Sox flailing a little against Nate Robertson (I blame hangovers from Maddux and Prior), but Dustin Hermanson stranded a leadoff I-Rod triple in the ninth to hold on to a 2-1 win.

Tonight the Sox run Brandon McCarthy to the hill. McCarthy has had a decent start against the Cubs and two awful starts against the Rangers and Royals. It seems it doesn't matter which AAA starter the Sox bring up these last two years, he's going to post a 9.00 ERA. Perhaps that says something about the White Sox upper-level pitching coaching in the minors?

The Twins lost already today, in part because their confounded stadium bit them and Shannon Stewart lost a fly ball. McCarthy doesn't need to put in a brilliant start. Let's see what happens now.

50-24: Not about us

I have read a few -- not many, but a few -- comments about how inept the White Sox were on Sunday. It's not about the White Sox. Mark Prior was unbelievably good, and this is not something new, he's done it before a few times. I read complaints about how the Sox tried to hit everything out of the park, and how they should have gone the other way. Let me say this: contrary to what every baseball broadcaster tells you, opposite field hitting is not a guarantee of success. When the other team plays you to hit the other way, you're going to make outs. Prior took away the pull hitting by his approach and the Cubs played defense to take away the other way. Game over.

Other quick remarks:

• Cheat, who complains only mildly about the ineptness of the offense, also sensibly points out that "SmartBall" is a PR ploy.
  
• Prior was brilliant, but you have to wonder if he'll make it through the season with a manager who treats him so cavalierly; that and his abominable luck seems to always get to him.
• Yet another slightly bizarre effort to analyze the White Sox offense manages to get in the bizarre digs about the White Sox pitching being "non-normative". The Sox defense is better, which is reflected in their DER, but that can't explain a 1.3-run drop is runs scored against. So, it must be luck. Hello! Hello! You can't really predict pitching. Pitchers learn new pitches. Pitchers adjust to situations. Batters hit differently in close games than in blowouts. You can predict hitting reasonably well, but pitching may simply never be predictable. What will Garland's ERA be in 2006? I have no idea -- and neither do you, and neither, I suspect, does anybody -- not close enough to be truly useful. You won't read that a lot of places because a lot of people are trying to make money convincing you that they can indeed predict pitcher performance.
  
• Why, exactly, doesn't A. J. Pierzynski get as much credit as I think is due? Maybe that 1.3 runs has something to do with getting two new catchers in the game? Is it a possibility at least?
  

50-23: How I wish it would rain down, down on me...

Greg Maddux stymied the White Sox on a Saturday afternoon and Jose Contreras struggled early to put the team in a big hole in a 6-2 loss to end the eight-game streak. In the top of the first, a bunt single, a couple of walks and a bomb pegged the Cubs to a 4-0 lead. Back to back homers in the second drew the Sox to 4-2, and Joe Crede just missed a two-run shot later in the inning, but that was all for the White Sox, whose offense crawled into a shell the rest of the game. So the eight-game streak is gone and the Sox, last I heard, had Prior to contend with tomorrow.

The Twins must have been watching, they posted a quick three on Milwaukee in the first. If they win, they'll be -- gasp -- only 9 1/2 games behind! Take cover!

50-22: Here comes the feeling...

After completing two 5-1 Regicides and a 12-2 laugher over the Cubs, the Sox find themselves with a 10 1/2 game lead after 72 games. The Twins aren't quite done yet, but they have wandered aimlessly, shell-shocked, for the last couple of weeks. Certainly nobody except the drunkest Pale Hose crank would have predicted a Secretariat-like lead at this point in the season.

Just some thoughts:

• Sox send Contreras and Garland against Maddux and, a head-scratcher, Prior for the last two Close Encounters. Prior is one of the great pitching talents of the decade, and I don't get asking him to pitch again four weeks after suffering a slight bone fracture.
• One presumes that once Frank's leg is 100% he'll stop trying to hit everything into Lake Michigan, but it's been fun, hasn't it?
• I think we all know how the Everett/Thomas thing is working out, and I think most of us Soxfans like it.
• The latest negativity buzz from the well of endless South Side paranoia is that Podsednik's getting picked off too much. One thing about White Sox fans -- if there's a speck of a possible problem, they'll be all over it and ignore everything good. I call it the Mike Squires Effect: let's overreact to some marginalia and wound the whole team.
• Latest rumor is Ted Lilly might be coming over to serve as the swingman. But for whom? Keep your eyes peeled for Kenny's Wild Bazaar, something always happens about this time of year.
  

47-22: Breathe

Two more slightly improbable wins later...

• I was worried sick about Brandon McCarthy earlier than most people, I suspect, because I was "watching" through GameCast. McCarthy wasn't getting any "Swinging Strikes", and that is just not a good sign because it meant he wasn't fooling anybody. Because the Sox pounded out 11 runs it didn't matter so much, but he's just got to dominate at least a few hitters...
• You know right now the consensus preseason predictions would be dead on -- if the White Sox were cooperating. The Twins fan base seems to think their team is underperforming, but 38-29 (.567) is probably above what they should have expected, hardly out of line. The Indians at 37-31 are doing a little better than expected, the Tigers are at .500, and the Royals are 14 games back of the Twins. The White Sox are the only team not cooperating, having won about a dozen more games than most people expected. Shucks.
• So far the Hunter Wendlestedt Effect hasn't popped up... let's hope it doesn't.
  

45-22: Wake me up before you Go-Go

Last night's game was astonishing. Dominated for eight innings by Elmer Dessens and underappreciated Dodgers 2B Jeff Kent, the White Sox destroyed Yancy Brozhoban in stunning fashion to pull out a 5-3 miracle. With the White Sox trailing 3-1 and playing classic "Corpseball", Tad Iguchi walked, took second on a groundout, and scored on an Everett single. Willie Harris pinch-ran for Everett and stole second base and scored on a Rowand bouncing single up the middle. A. J. Pierzysnki worked the count full, fouled off several pitches, then -- improbably -- homered over the left center field fence to stun the Dodgers and win the game.

• The end of this game was the classic mix of Go-Go (steals and hit- and-runs and singles) with 21st century White Sox 8th Air Force bombing.
  
• Give Freddy Garcia credit. He had nothing and he held the Dodgers to three runs in 8 innings. They may have been depleted but all those walks should have cooked Garcia and they didn't.
  
• Is AJP the heart and soul of this team?
  
• The White Sox are just not fading. If they had built their 45-22 record by racing out to a flukey record and then hanging on, I'd be less confident. They're 7-3 over their last 10, 12-8 over their last 20, 18-12 over their last 30, and 25-15 over their last 40 games. This consistency suggests they aren't going to suddenly start playing .500 ball, and in fact, they aren't showing any signs of regression yet.

Not Make Believe

Chris Widger is not a surprise.

Chris Widger has ALWAYS played well -- over his whole career -- in certain situations. He has always hit lefthanders far more than adequately (.277/.333/.502 career in 224 games and counting).

But, like Miguel Olivo, he's never been particularly good (or even "non-craptastic") against RHP-- he's a .231/.288/.368 lifetime hitter in that situation. He can't play regularly because of this. Tony LaRussa two years ago basically used him as backup, but usually only against RHP and he sucked, further hurting his rep with GMs who don't look deeper than the backs of the Topps cards on their bulletin boards.

Ozzie, who is NOT Jerry Manuel or Tony LaRussa, has cleverly used The Widge mostly against LHPs. Chris has responded, hitting .313/.353/.594 against them, basically in line with his career numbers. It is to be EXPECTED that he'll hit like that against LHPs -- because he always has!

Against RHPs he's at .296 this year but with almost all singles, and there I'll grant you the sample-size argument -- but he isn't hitting well even with that empty average, so his career expectations are still being fulfilled.

Considering that the White Sox' primary catcher is a lefthanded batter, and that Widge can hit LHP solidly, he's a pretty good guy to have around.

He has trouble keeping a job because he can't hit RHP well enough to keep a regular job, and many major league teams try to platoon their catchers based on the starting pitcher ("caddies"), which plays hell with the hitting for a guy with certain limited skills. Just because other managers, for a semi-idiotic reason, and despite a massive 180-point platoon split, made sure Widger has gotten almost 3/4 of his plate appearances when he's at a disadvantage doesn't mean he can't play.

The secret to being a good baseball manager is to find ways to use your players in situations where they are best. Ozzie's done that with Widger.

44-22: All I Wanna Do Is Have Some Fun

Last night's 6-0 blanking of the depleted Dodgers featured Mark Buerhle scattering 8 hits in a complete-game shutout, Frank Thomas hitting a two-run insurance homer, and, most importantly, that rarest of events in the 2005 White Sox slate, a comfortable victory. Actually, they've been a lot more frequent since about the 30th of May.

• The shutout was the third, combination or otherwise, for Mark Buehrle this year, who now sports a 2.67 ERA. The beginning of the 2004 season marks a key dividing line in Buehrle's career; he started striking more batters out, and since then, his ERA has been in the mid 3's. While Garland has had a marvelous first 40% of the year, there's little question Buehrle's the stopper on this team.
• Frank Thomas now has five home runs in 28 at bats and could have a few more; he's just missed at least three more bombs. Not bad at all for somebody who hadn't played baseball in almost a year. When Thomas announced he was ready despite hitting under .200 in his rehab assignment, it scared the daylights out of me. I was wrong, he was ready.
• Joe Crede looked like the player he was supposed to be all through April; he scuffled through May, and has hit OK so far through June (.275/.370/.625) but he's obviously slipped into another funk that will end, well, nobody knows when. His defense is keeping him in the lineup -- that, and a lack of suitable replacement. The only really readily "available" replacement is Red Joe Randa, who would be a bit of n offensive upgrade but probably not one worth the cost he would command. But, since when has that stopped Ken Williams?
  

43-22: Dance On A Volcano

After a classic crawl-from-behind win at San Diego came two listless blowouts at the hands of the once-lowly (but now average) Arizona Diamondbacks. Wednesday night looked like another one when a couple of defensive slips and a bad home run game the Snakes a 6-1 lead going into the bottom of the fifth. Russ Ortiz, of all pitchers, was dominant, and the Sox looked doomed to their fourth loss in five games. You better start doing it right. The Twins are lurking...

Then the Diamonbacks fielders crated and so did Ortiz, and the Sox blew up all over the Arizonans. The Sox sneaked in a run on an error, then Frank homered... then the fun came. Royce Clayton botched two plays and Uribe and Konerko hit three-run homers in a ten-run outburst that turned a 6-2 game into a 12-6 game. Jon Garland, taken off the hook by the biggest Sox inning in several years, escaped with his 11th win.

Meanwhile, the invincible Twins bullpen let in three insurance runs in an 8-4 loss, and the White Sox found themselves staked back to a five-game lead. The magic continues...

41-20: Dustin The Wind [groan]

Dustin Hermanson detonated spectacularly in San Diego, blowing his first save of the season, and spoiling a Buehrle masterpiece in a 2-1 loss. After a horrendous, gut-wrenching blown play and the plate call where Paul Konerko was incorrectly called out to end the top of the ninth with the Sox leading 1-0, with one out Ramon Hernandez homered to left, the Padres dinked in weak hit, a double, an intentional walk, and a single through the infield gave them a 2-1 win.

The White Sox struggled all night against a terrific-looking rookie pitcher with a nasty, Wilson-Alvarez-grade hook. It was one of those games where you just knew something bad was going to happen, and when Konerko was called out and Hernandez hit the home run, I thought I'd burst a blood vessel. Fortunately (he writes sarcastically), Hermanson royally blew up, and saved Johnny Mostil from his own bile.

Ozzie got caught in a tactical bind in the top of the 8th when Uribe walked and Crede singled to put runners on the corners with nobody out. Buehrle was due to hit, and Ozzie let him hit; he failed to get a bunt down in a situation normally crying for a pinch hitter. This bit of nastiness I blame on the perversity of making AL teams play by the NL's anachronistic rules more than any "mistake" by Ozzie -- pinch hitting would have been second-guessable as well -- and with Marte not available and Giles lurking third in the bottom of the inning, I guess I can see why he left Buehrle in. Podsednik took a questionable called third strike and Iguchi struck out too to snuff the rally.

A Quick One

Ozzie Guillen's Sox have come to first place to stay.

To whip the Tribe and Royals good, and brush Detroit away.

To shoo the Yankees from the field and dust the Coors field team,

And make the bunts and hit 'n run and make the Angels scream.

While all us loyal Sox fans, when the evening game is done,

We surf around the Internet and have the most of fun,

Reading all the witch tales that those weblogs tell about

How the Twins are gonna get us if we don't watch out!