By Andrew Reilly

Down an ace and up a few pleasant surprises, let us take a moment then to give thanks for the opportunity this week will present us. Not specifically in anything the team will or will not do, whether getting sweet revenge on Felix Hernandez or acquiring much-needed roster additions, but in what they generally do; in short, we get to see how closely the Sox’ walk follows the Sox’ talk.
Do they really have the finances to add payroll when it will help the team win?
Do they really value winning enough to boost payroll?
Which is better: an absolute present or a promising future?

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Posted on July 26, 2010

Last ones on the bandwagon are the first ones off.
Week in Review: Defining? Instead of holding serve with a split in Twinkie Town, the Sox blundered their way to losing three of a four-game set. Despite his statistical luck, Bobby Jenks was given the exit row seat on the flight to Seattle.

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Posted on July 19, 2010

By Andrew Reilly

“First place Chicago White Sox.” What were the odds?
So we close the first leg of the 2010 season with the Chicago White Sox – the White Sox! – riding high as baseball’s hottest team, compiling a 27-10 record since June 1 and obliterating every team in their path. How is that even possible? When did John Danks become the best pitcher in baseball? How is Carlos Quentin driving in 11 runs in the span of a mere week? Why in the world is Omar Vizquel playing with the energy of someone half his age?
I don’t know; I suspect you (and they) don’t either, outside of idiotic platitudes about how this team never gives up and was built to win, so we’ll leave that one unanswered for now. However, what we do know is that, thanks to an improbably fantastic past six weeks, we suddenly have a season.

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Posted on July 12, 2010

By Andrew Reilly

Paul Konerko, about whom you may have read in this space before, is currently getting trounced in the fan vote for the last spot on the American League roster at next week’s All-Star Game.
Plenty of folks will get up in arms about this, railing against the perceived injustices of the whole contest and the countless flaws of a system that allows Chase Utley, who is on the disabled list, to be voted in as the National League’s starting second baseman.
Paulie, they will say, is having as great a season as anyone else (note: even as Justin Morneau and Miguel Cabrera make him not even the best first baseman in the division) and deserves recognition for what he means to a proud franchise (note: the Sox are so great that they had to win every day for three weeks to get back to .500). But let me go on record as saying: ignore those people, for they know not of what they speak.

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Posted on July 6, 2010

By Andrew Reilly

Yes, interleague baseball is stupid for many, many reasons, but I will say this: destroying the Cubs never gets old. Ever. But baseball-lite can only last for so long, and now that the Sox have feasted upon the bones of the weak and the wounded, let us get back to the business of taking down the American League.
Remember the American League? They’re the big, scary one with all the teams who aren’t in last place, who aren’t firing their pitchers, who aren’t falling apart in the face of the new mightiest team in the land. Part of me worries that the Sox, faced once more with tougher competition, will revert to the abysmal way they were before, but part of me also remembers hey, they just took out the Braves, who can legitimately lay claim to the title of “best team in baseball.”

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Posted on June 28, 2010

By Andrew Reilly

Of course they go on a tear during interleague play against the last-place Pirates (ha!) and last-place Nationals (double ha!).
And of course the talk now is that the Sox are turning things around, that they’re right back in it, that the pieces are coming together to start the drive for grind/grinder/grit/2005, because why would anyone think otherwise? Why wouldn’t the Nationals engaging the Sox in a pair of pitchers’ duels suggest greatness? Why wouldn’t toppling the Pirates be an indicator of a World Series parade to come?
They don’t, and really this couldn’t have happened at a worse time. Now management doesn’t have to break up the team and plan for the future because, the Sox “are built to contend, as shown by this stretch of baseball,” or whatever it is the front office and the idiots calling in to The Score have to say about it. No one has to make any difficult decisions about moving beloved veterans; no one has to worry just yet about the dip in that sweet, sweet t-shirt revenue; no one has to think of the ramifications that simple baseball logic would have on attendance. Some of us might be happy about this; most of us, those of us who care, anyway, are not.

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Posted on June 21, 2010

Andrew Reilly is on special assignment in search of Brian Anderson. He returns next week.
You’ll know Ozzie Guillen is on the way out the door once he starts complaining about Steve Stone.
Until then, Kenny Williams is the one on the clock. Following in Jim Hendry’s footsteps and bringing in recognizable journeymen and former stars isn’t working. And neither is letting the manager make the roster.
And let us ask something: What is it about working for Jerry Reinsdorf . . . ?

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Posted on June 14, 2010

By Andrew Reilly

Tuesday night is Hawk Harrelson Night at the old ballpark, an evening to commemorate 25 seasons of hangwifums and duck snorts and more Carl Yazstremski adoration than you can shake a career .239 average at.
The team reports Hawkeroo “will be saluted by a number of special guests,” although it is anyone’s guess as to who these special guests may be. Perhaps any number of luminaries from the squad Harrelson assembled during his historic run as general manager, in which true baseball genius fully flexed itself, a lifetime of folksy wisdom come to life as the team that won an unprecedented 72 games in a single season.

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Posted on June 8, 2010

By Andrew Reilly

The best news in White Sox baseball actually came out of Anaheim this weekend, as excellent Angels 1B Kendry Morales crushed his leg celebrating a walk-off home run. Morales, at the time, led the Angels with 11 home runs and 39 RBI and is under an extremely low-dollar contract through the end of 2010 while Sox 1B Paul Konerko, currently decimating American League pitching, is a free agent after 2010 as well and . . . well, you know where this is going.
But I’ll let you in on a secret: I’m rooting for it to happen. In fact, I’m rooting for all of it to happen to all of them.

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Posted on June 1, 2010

By Andrew Reilly

When the White Sox head to Cleveland this week, let us not dwell on the things they cannot do.
Forget the trade bait and its rapidly diminishing value.
Forget about the monumental, recently broken two-game win streak – longest of the season!
Forget about the horrifyingly bad offense, effectively posting the worst collective line in the American League despite a deceivingly well-rounded lineup, fourth in home runs and somehow second in stolen bases.

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Posted on May 24, 2010