By Andrew Reilly

Yes, but what do four wins and nine losses really mean?
Maybe this is the plan all along, to lull the rest of the American League into a false sense of confidence by throwing away inconsequential games, later winning just enough to make it into the postseason through the Wild Card, then torching their way to an 11-0 postseason built upon legendary pitching and hitting so timely, so productive, so perfect the team can turn it on and off at will.
Maybe they’ve simply been up against this year’s inevitable champions, with Toronto poised to overthrow the evil dictatorship at work in the East and Minnesota and Cleveland set to stage a Central race for the ages.
Maybe they’re just getting all the bad baseball out of the way now, so they can enter the 2010 playoffs riding six months of unprecedented momentum, six months spent alternately clawing their way to unbelievable triumphs and crushing the opposition with their hammer of superiority.
Or maybe they’re actually worse than we imagined. Four and nine. There are two teams faring more poorly, and of those two, the Astros have at least won a series and the Orioles have the exact same road record as the Sox. On the other hand, the Sox are only 5.5 out of the Wild Card with 149 games left to play. That should not sound so insurmountable so early but with these White Sox, as we are quickly learning, nothing is truly impossible. Nothing, that is, except winning.

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Posted on April 20, 2010

By Jim Coffman

I would exclaim “whew!” in response to the Hawks’ series-tying 2-0 victory over Nashville on Sunday evening, but going into the game it didn’t seem like many folks were even moderately worried. There is the ongoing concern about the goaltending, of course (specifically whether rookie Antti Niemi will hold up over the long, long haul of the Stanley Cup playoffs). But in the short term there was widespread confidence the Blackhawks would find a way to bounce back, and eventually prevail, against the pesky Predators.

Beachwood Baseball The Cub Factor. Agony & Ivy. The White Sox Report will appear on Tuesday.

And I know that because I engaged a respected polling firm whose operators spoke with hundreds of Hawk fans in the 48 hours between Games 1 and 2. Sure I did. Either that or I’m wallowing in the sort of generalization about the local sports scene that usually drives me nuts. I’ve got my finger on the pulse on this one though. I just know it. Then again, the margin for error is plus-minus 40 percent.
Again, I’m not saying folks aren’t worried plenty about Niemi, even if Saturday’s shutout was the first for the Blackhawks in the playoffs in 14 years. Ed Belfour was the last to do it for gosh sakes. That almost endless string of non-shutouts was almost as ridiculous as the Hawks going a dozen-and-a-half years without a division title – another streak that has finally come to an end this spring.
But the Hawks can beat the Predators with Niemi.

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Posted on April 19, 2010

By Marty Gangler

So my son turned two this weekend and, as some of you reading this may know, around this time kids start to pick up on things. Okay, they pick up on things all the time – but they start to really vocalize things right around two.
Okay, I really don’t have anything to compare my little guy to because I’ve not been around a lot of 2-year-olds – but I’m guessing my kid is about average – so kids around this age really start to vocalize things.
And my little guy sees anything with red and blue and says “Cubbies.”
It’s ridiculously adorable.
I mean, like even a White Sox fan would kind of give the kid kind of a smirky smile if he saw him say “Cubbies.”
He pronounces it “cubeeez.”
So he gets the fact that the Cubbies are our team.
And as we sit down to watch games now I try to explain to him everything that is going on.
They say you are supposed to talk to your little guys just like they were a regular-sized people – at least I think that is what they say.
So as I sit down on the couch to watch the Cubbies with Mitchell (he has his little baseball and glove on – which is just such a great Dad moment), I start to explain to him what is going on with the Cubs.
But it’s hard to do because it gets complicated.
I have to tell him things like:

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Posted on April 19, 2010

By Thomas Chambers

It’s not the oldest American race – that would be the Travers Stakes. And it’s not the richest race – that would be the Breeders’ Cup Classic.
But it’s the diamond, the one race they all want to win, or even just run in. The Kentucky Derby is the one race a year that comes close to catching the attention of most sports fans.
Owners in their heart of hearts might know their horse can’t win, then gaze upon the apparitions of a Mine That Bird, a Giacomo, a Charismatic. It’s a syndrome, Derby Fever, and the only pharmaceuticals for it are a single-minded horse, a fearless jockey and a massive dose of plain luck.

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Posted on April 16, 2010

By Dan O’Shea

What can you count on after the first week of the baseball season, beside the certainty that a bunch of guys still hitting above .500?
You can count on at least a few superstars getting off to a slow start.
So it goes for Mark Texeira, Troy Tulowitski and Prince Fielder, who didn’t have a single home run between them as of Monday, and starting pitchers like Jake Peavy and Ricky Nolasco, who have looked terrible in their first two starts.
Fear not – all of these guys are notorious slow starters, and it’s only a matter of time before those hitters start looking like the MVP candidates they are supposed to be this season and those pitchers play up to their potential.
In particular, fantasy owners may have short patience for Peavy, who has moved from the National League to the so-called hitters’ league and from spacious his old home at spacious Petco Park to his new home at boxy U.S. Cellular Field.
However, Peavy’s best months tend to come later in the season, specifically in August, when he has 21 career wins, and September, when he has 18. His ERA also is generally lower in late summer, with a 2.61 ERA in August alone. His May outings tend to be good, too – 17 wins and a 2.81 ERA, but he does have a losing record over his career for June, at 11-14.

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Posted on April 14, 2010

From around the nation.
1. Cubs.

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Posted on April 13, 2010

By Jim Coffman

This is the delightful little portion of the year when four local major-league teams are in action and they all took to court, ice and field on Sunday.
The White Sox managed to rally and knock off the Twins (with a little help from a head’s-up Mark Teahan leaving third base to go get a relay from Juan Pierre and then throwing out J.J. Hardy at home by a dozen feet for the final out of the game). But that just meant the first week of the South Side season went from “disaster” to “disturbingly bad.”

Beachwood Baseball Ofman: Sorry Sori. Gangler: The Cub Factor. Reilly: The White Sox Report. Now Presenting: Agony & Ivy!

Even with the loss, the Twins headed to Minnesota for their home opener with a 5-2 mark. The White Sox began by dropping four of six and the best part was they were all home games.
As for the Cubs, since Carlos Zambrano’s latest flameout in a high-profile game (that’ll be all for the Big Z and openers, won’t it Lou?) – the one where he allowed eight runs in less than two innings in Atlanta on Opening Day – Cub pitchers have turned in five straight quality starts. The squad managed to win two off those games.
I dare say the Cubs led the league in quality starts wasted last year and they seem determined to protect that crown this time around.
On Saturday it was Tom Gorzelanny’s turn to see a great effort go to waste. He did not allow an earned run in six-and-a-third innings of work, but it all went to waste because the Cubs could manage only one run despite receiving seven walks in the first six innings alone.
And how much longer can the manager play Alfonso “Mr. Futility” Soriano, who is off to another delightful start with bat and glove, virtually every day? His failure to catch a routine fly ball enabled the Reds to tie Sunday’s game with the Cubs and forced Lou Piniella’s bullpen hand earlier than he would have liked.
Analyst Bob Brenly sounds like he has just about seen enough. After criticizing Soriano’s defense in the bottom of the seventh, he had this to say after Soriano struck out meekly to begin the top of the ninth:
“Another sight Cubs pitcher and players have become accustomed to seeing . . . any opposing pitcher who can put a breaking ball on the outer half (against Soriano) has a great chance” to strike him out.

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Posted on April 12, 2010

By George Ofman

The lynch mob was ready.
Upon hosting my first 10th Inning post-game show on WGN Radio on Sunday, I had to consider where the diehards would be coming from.
The Cubs had lost to the Reds 3-1 and did so in galling fashion. Would they rip the bullpen which, once again, coughed up another game a starter had masterfully crafted?
Some callers did.
Would they take their shots at the middle of the lineup that gave a first-timer a reprieve, and more than once?
Some callers did.
But most of the agitated if not downright furious fans saved their wrath for the $136 million dollar man.
Fonzi got his, and then some.
And he deserved every angry word.

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Posted on April 12, 2010

By Marty Gangler

It feels like the 2009 season never ended.
The Cubs have picked up right where they left off.
Sure, there are some lousy new faces where the old lousy faces were before, but it sure feels like the same team.
It’s kind of like when you are a kid and you finish 4th grade for the summer and you feel glad that it’s over because well, fourth grade just sucked for you. And you tell yourself all summer that fifth grade is going to be different. In fifth grade I’m going to run faster than Bobby Sanders and Becky Richards is going to notice me and totally want to sit by me at lunch. But then you are three days into 5th grade and Bobby Sanders totally smoked you in gym class and Becky Richards shot you a “what the F are you doing” look when you just paused for a second near her table. And fifth grade is exactly like you remembered fourth grade being. So then you fake a stomachache, go to the school nurse’s office and talk to her about how you are feeling. She tells you that it’s only three days into the new year and things will get better – except you don’t believe her because she told you the same thing at the beginning of last year and you feel exactly the same way as you always felt.
So yeah, it’s technically been a week but it feels like forever.

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Posted on April 12, 2010

By Andrew Reilly

Losing four of your first six games isn’t really that big a deal, so long as a team isn’t doing it:
A) in a park in which they should dominate.
B) against teams they really, really need to beat.
C) in a fashion that suggests the team’s vulnerabilities are even greater than previously imagined, including an alarming number of strikeouts by the batters, an offense so hilariously one-sided it’s launched seven home runs yet plated only 21 runners, not to mention the reliance on players performing amazing feats of glovework that, in all likelihood, will never be repeated ever, as long as any of them wear a White Sox uniform, and this nagging idea that yes, this season is going to be one long series of gems tossed by the starting staff ultimately squandered by a shaky bullpen and a lumber company that simply cannot deliver.

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Posted on April 12, 2010