SB Nation - Gavin Floyd

Rosterbation-Mania!

U-God — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 05:18:10 -0000

More photos » by Ted S. Warren - AP

Raise your hand if you want to play for the White Sox next year. Esteban, please put your hand down. Seriously though, Esteban, you aren't welcome. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)

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Over the past couple days, and inspired by the infamous U.S.S. Mariner post and the on-going reader input over at Sox Machine, I've been putting together my off-season plan. I tried to keep it as realistic as possible (no video game trades), especially in terms of payroll. Feel encouraged to leave your own roster plans in the comments section. U-God's 2010 plan lies after the jump.

Free Agent Acquistions:

DH- Nick Johnson, 1 year/5.5 mil

I love Jim Thome and always will. He is my back-up plan. With that being said, I would be thrilled if KW went out and got Nick Johnson. The 31 year old lefty has a career .849 OPS fueled largely by his .402 career OBP. Johnson also allows us to rotate Paul Konerko and Carlos Quentin in at DH as well. He does come with injury-risks, but using him mainly as a DH in combination with one of the premier medical staffs in baseball should counteract that. The injury risk combined with the down market should allow the Sox to grab him at a reasonable price for a year.

RF- Marlon Byrd, 1 year/4.5 mil

Byrd would be a very refreshing change of pace out in rightfield. He has posted an OPS above .800 each year since joining the American League and has been an above-average defender in right as well. His career high 20 homers last year will guarentee him a raise, though probably a modest one. Byrd also provides a nice stop-gap for our outfield prospects.

C- Brian Schneider, 1 year/1.5 mil

Schneider's days as a starter are over. He's a lefty-catcher who has had good success stopping opponent's run games (38 CS%). Being a backup drops his price tag and lowers his risk of getting hurt again.

1B/OF- Mark Kotsay, 1 year/1.5 mil

Bring him back. He was good after we traded for him and gives Ozzie more flexibility with his bench and lineups.

Contract Extension:

Offer John Danks the Jon Lester deal (5 years/30 mil). It's a back-loaded contract that buys out John's arbitration years and allows him to hit free agency at age 31. It may take more money to lock him up, but for simplicity's sake, I'm just going to use the Lester deal.

Batting Order:

DH- Nick Johnson, 3B- Gordon Beckham, LF- Carlos Quentin, 1B- Paul Konerko, C- A.J. Pierzynski, CF- Alex Rios, RF- Marlon Byrd, SS- Alexei Ramirez, 2B- Chris Getz.

That OBP in front of Beckham gives me dirty thoughts.

Bench:

C- Brian Schneider, 1B/OF- Mark Kotsay, UTIL- Jayson Nix, OF- Alejandro De Aza

Nix gives pop off the bench and De Aza gives Ozzie a speedy pinch-runner for late in the game.

Starting Rotation:

Jake Peavy-RHP, Mark Buehrle-LHP, Gavin Floyd-RHP, John Danks-LHP, Freddy Garcia-RHP

I like the idea of having Peavy and Garcia pitch back to back.

Bullpen:

Bobby Jenks-CL, Matt Thornton-LHP, Scott Linebrink-RHP, DJ Carrasco-RHP, Tony Peña-RHP, Jhonny Nuñez-RHP, Randy Williams-LHP

I wanted to trade Jenks, but his value is too low right now and I don't want a repeat of the Nick Swisher trade.

Other Costs:

$1 mil buy-out for Jermaine Dye

$.35 mil for Mike MacDougal, damn him

Team Payroll:

$96.65 mil, only .55 higher than last season's opening salary. All figures (except my FAs and arbitration guesstimates) taken from Cot's Baseball Contracts.

Pirates Can't Learn Much From Phillies

Charlie — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 22:05:52 -0000

More photos » by Ross D. Franklin - AP

Philadelphia Phillies' Cole Hamels throws against the Arizona Diamondbacks, Tuesday, July 28, 2009, in Phoenix. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)

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John Mehno has the right idea in this Beaver County Times column about the differences between the Pirates and Phillies--it's not primarily about spending, it's about building by acquiring amateur talent. But while the technique of comparing some great Phillies draft picks (Ryan Howard, Chase Utley, and so on) to picks the Pirates botched at similar points in their drafts is effective for an article written with a word count for a general audience, it doesn't quite tell the whole story.

The Phillies' case is really weird. If you look at their drafts under previous GM Ed Wade (that's basically the time frame described in the Beaver County article), it's very surprising they've been so successful. Working backwards, the best player they got in 2005 was current Athletics reliever Josh Outman; they also got current Reds reliever Matt Maloney. That was it. In 2004 they got J.A. Happ in the third round, Jason Jaramillo in the second, and Lou Marson in the fourth, but they also took Greg Golson as a dubious tools pick in the first round and got nothing in the later rounds. In 2003 they had no first- or second-round pick; they got Michael Bourn and Kyle Kendrick, and that was it.

In 2002 the Phils took Cole Hamels in the first round, which was obviously a great pick, but they got absolutely nothing else. In 2001, it was Gavin Floyd in the first round and Howard in the fifth, and absolutely nothing else. In 2000, they got Utley, Taylor Buchholz and nothing else. In 1999, it was Brett Myers, Marlon Byrd and nothing else. (They also drafted Joe Saunders, but didn't sign him.)

Now, maybe this doesn't sound too noteworthy to some of you. Maybe you think that if you get one good player out of a draft, that's great, and to a certain extent that's true. In this case, the results speak for themselves. But what's odd to me about the Phillies' drafts under Wade is how incredibly thin they were. Wade seemed to get a star player and almost nothing else every year for several seasons in a row. That's strange.

To see what I mean, let's take a look at Wade's first draft for the Phillies in 1998. He took Pat Burrell with the first overall pick (a bit of a no-brainer), but he also got several moderately useful players later on, such as Jason Michaels, Geoff Geary and Nick Punto.

In the grand scheme of things, it doesn't really matter that much if you fail to identify the next Nick Punto in your draft, but it does raise the question of why, if the Phillies are supposed to be a good example of intelligent drafting, they were able to identify so many star players but so few other future productive major leaguers.

Here's an example. In 2000 the Phillies got Utley, who single-handedly made the draft a very successful one for Philadelphia. The same year, the Pirates got Chris Young, Nate McLouth, Ian Snell, Jose Bautista and Sean Burnett. I'd say the Pirates actually did a much better job in that draft, even though it turned out worse--Dave Littlefield stupidly traded away Young a couple years later, and first-rounder Burnett's career was derailed with a ton of injuries. Drafting players who will stay healthy and helping them stay healthy involve skills, of course, and it certainly helps to not take a pitcher in the first round every year like the Pirates did. But there's luck involved too. For example, the Phillies were notably lucky that, for example, high school draftee Hamels basically made it to the majors with his elbow and shoulder intact, particularly after he missed huge chunks of his minor league career with injuries.

In 2001 the Phillies got Floyd, later sent to the White Sox in the Jim Thome trade, and Howard. That was all. Again, the Pirates had a much more robust draft, grabbing a number of moderately useful players in Zach Duke, Chris Shelton, Jeff Keppinger, Chris Duffy, Jonathan Albaladejo and Rajai Davis. (They also might have had some shot of signing 11th-rounder Stephen Drew if Littlefield, who was hired shortly after the draft, hadn't dropped the ball.) The Pirates royally messed up their first-round pick, John Van Benschoten, and that was their fault, but again, I'm not really convinced that Wade and the Phillies had a better idea of what they were doing.

Of course, Littlefield and his team started drafting in 2002, and after that all bets are off. There's no defending much of anything Littlefield did. My point, though, is that I'm not sure the Wade-era Phillies are a particularly good model here. In fact, it looks to me that they repeatedly got very lucky with about one pick each year and totally bombed the rest of their drafts under Wade, with the exceptions of 1998 and 2004. I don't mean to take anything away from the Phillies, who have generally been pretty well run since Wade left. But If there are things the Pirates can learn from this, they are the very basic points that, first, it's generally very important not to screw up first-round picks, and second, that it's important to build a core of homegrown stars. Beyond that, the Phillies' example doesn't tell us a whole lot.

Revisiting Our Gavin Floyd Projection

The Cheat — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 02:08:38 -0000

The early release of Dan Szymborski's ZiPS projections reminded me of the time I put in building a better projection for Gavin Floyd. At the time, there was some general discontent over the projections of some of the White Sox pitchers, and Floyd in particular.

Rather than open it up to the masses for one of our Community Projections, I decided to take the opportunity to scratch the surface of how a projection was built in the first place, to see why we felt other projections were missing the boat on Floyd, and finally, to build a projection of my own.

So how did I do? Judge for yourself...

	G	IP	H	R	ER	HR	BB	K	ERA	WHIP	K/9	BB/9	HR/9
Gavin Floyd	30	193.0	178	93	87	21	59	163	4.06	1.23	7.6	2.75	0.98
Cheat's Projection	30	192	199	107	97	28	61	153	4.55	1.35	7.15	2.85	1.33

Floyd bested his 90th percentile PECOTA projections in most categories, and his 75th in virtually all of them. And while he exceeded my own projection across the board, by applying some critical thinking to his previous rate stats, I was able to come up with a projection much closer to the actual result.

Now the point of revisiting this projection wasn't simply to pat myself on the back. After all, you can easily browse the archives and find that I picked the Indians to win the division and thought the Tigers were the most likely team in baseball to be in fire sale mode by May. I was also "done" with Floyd by the time he turned it around starting the night of our outing. The point is that we were able to sift through the noise of Gavin's unsustainable hot start in '08 and rocky minor league career to find a better approximation of his true talent.

Without diving into another spreadsheet again, I'd say that Floyd is unlikely to best his '09 numbers in '10. His HR/9, in particular, seems like an outlier; but I'd say he's a good bet to beat his his '10 projections, though ZiPS is the only one available thus far.

Gavin Floyd Tweaks Hip, White Sox Still Seeking Level

The Cheat — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 04:39:01 -0000

More photos » by John Froschauer - AP

It's hip to be scared

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I don't know how Gavin Floyd even made it through three innings. I mean I know he was trying to gut through a minor (?) injury, but what's the point? And where was AJ, or Ozzie or Herm? It was clear to me (even in my inebriated state) that he was uncomfortable on the mound in the first, though it did become less pronounced as the game wore on. I initially diagnosed it as a problem with his landing spot, but within a couple pitches his actions seemed to indicate a physical problem. The Sox finally pulled him after 3 innings, by which point I had convinced myself I was seeing things and reached for another beer.

Gordon Beckham broke up the shutout and put a bow on this turd with a homerun on his birthday. Otherwise it was a thoroughly boring game.

Series Preview: Chicago White Sox @ Seattle Mariners

Jeff — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 21:37:51 -0000

Seattle: 74-70
Chicago: 71-73

SUMMARY

	MARINERS	WHITE SOX	EDGE
HITTING (wOBA)	-89.1 (29th)	-62.7 (26th)	CHW
FIELDING (UZR)	72.5 (1st)	-38.7 (24th)	SEA
ROTATION (pRAA)	-28.7 (23rd)	61.8 (6th)	CHW
BULLPEN (pRAA)	-24.6 (29th)	30.2 (3rd)	CHW
OVERALL(RAA)	-69.9	-9.4	Chicago

Just another series where we play a team with a worse record and a better overall performance. It's rather remarkable just how poor Chicago's position players have been this year; where the Mariners have at least been able to catch the balls hit at them, the White Sox haven't been able to hit or field, with the result being a group worth something like nine or ten wins below average. What's been able to keep them on the fringes of the race is an outstanding pitching staff led not by a few stars, but by a lot of guys who're average or better. Among them is Matt Thornton, who ranks near the top in pretty much every meaningful reliever metric. How I wish I could have a do-over on that one. Sorry for blasting you so much, Matt. I was young. I was stupid.

The Mariners are playing for pride and a .500+ record. The White Sox are still trying to squeak into the playoffs, and though they're 6.5 back, they still have six more games against Detroit, so not all hope is lost. It's not much, but realistically, this will probably be our last chance to play spoiler, so here's to making a difference. Let's give Chicago as dull a final few weeks as ours.

GAMES

Game 1: Freddy Garcia vs. Ian Snell
Game 2: TBA (Carlos Torres? D.J. Carrasco? Daniel Hudson?) vs. Ryan Rowland-Smith *
Game 3: Gavin Floyd vs. Brandon Morrow

Garcia was a workhorse for Chicago from the minute he got traded, throwing nearly 550 innings over two and a half seasons and helping the Sox win a World Series. He then got sent to Philadelphia in December 2006 and promptly came apart. He's only made 19 Major League starts in the three years since, but he seems to have worked his way back, and in the early going so far he's been pretty difficult to hit, with a 74% contact rate and what Fangraphs lists as a five-pitch assortment. The velocity isn't really there anymore, and he has a difficult time breaking 90, but he should nevertheless have the advantage in a matchup against Ian Snell, who gets rattled when he tries a new cereal.

Chicago hasn't yet officially announced a starter for Wednesday. Two of the candidates are interesting. Three of the candidates could own us.

Thursday brings us a matchup between a guy who's finally learned how to pitch and a guy who's still trying to. Floyd's strikeout and contact numbers are significantly better than they've been in the past, and as a result he's actually somewhat earned his shiny ERA. The four-year contract he signed in March looked kind of stupid then, but looks terrific now. Morrow, meanwhile...God, whatever.

Maicer Izturis Paves the Way for Angels 7-1 Bulldozing of ChiSox

Rev Halofan — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 04:41:35 -0000

More photos » by Chris Pizzello - AP

2 months ago: Los Angeles Angels' Vladimir Guerrero hits an RBI single during the ninth inning of an MLB baseball game against the Chicago White Sox in Anaheim, Calif., Friday, Sept. 11, 2009. The Angels won the game 7-1. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello)

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Final Score in Anaheim: White Sox 1, Angels 7

Angels lefty Joe Saunders pitched 7 innings of 1-Run Ball, striking out 3 and throwing only 99 pitches; meanwhile his offense was there tonight, making ten hits count as they brought around 7 Runs, the big blow being a 2 run double in the 5th inning by 2Bman Maicer Izturis.

Best play of the night was a foul ball off the bat of Erick Aybar that smacked the arm of Pale Hose manager Ozzie Guillen. It was part of a 13-pitch AB that helped to wear out Chicago starter Gavin Floyd.

Saunders was efficient, scattering hits and inducing a lone double play when he needed it.

Four of the Angels hits were doubles, 2 by Izturis and 1 each by Bobby Abreu and Juan Rivera. A base hit late in the game by Vladimir Guerrero drove in another run, Vlad's 2nd RBI of the night, both on sharp basehits with men in scoring position.

Chris Petit made his major league debut replacing Guerrero on the basepaths and sporting the jersey number of the recently-released Justin Speier. Petit stole 2B and scored on Rivera's double for the final run of the evening. Justin Bulger and Darren Oliver pitched the 8th and Jose Arredondo made use of the insurance runs to pitch a 1-2-3 9th inning, a year and a day after he got caught playing with the garden hose after the game.

Poll

Panther of the Game

Maicer Izturis

57 votes

Joe Saunders

175 votes

232 votes | Poll has closed

O's 5, White Sox 1: Welcome to the Brian Roberts Show

Stacey — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 04:07:45 -0000

More photos » by Charles Rex Arbogast - AP

Baltimore Orioles' Felix Pie, left, greets teammate Brian Roberts at home plate after both scored off Roberts' second home run of the game. Felix had 3 hits on the night, earning him an honorable mention tonight for MBP. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)

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Jeremy Guthrie pitched 7 strong innings and the super hot Brian Roberts hit two home runs as the O's beat the White Sox 5-1. It was their second win in a row and the first time the Orioles have won back-to-back games since July 29-30 vs the Kansas City Royals.

Jeremy Guthrie loves pitching in Chicago, it seems. He pitched his best game tonight since his last game in Chicago on July 19th. In his 7 innings, Guts allowed just 6 hits and 2 walks, and the only run came on a 4th inning home run against Jim Thome. It was inevitable that Thome would hit a home run off of Guthrie, really. Going into tonight's game, Thome has 563 career home runs. He had three hits against Guthrie in his career, two of which were home runs. And Guthrie leads the league in home runs. You do the math. Thankfully Guthrie was able to limit the damage to just the Thome home run to keep the O's in the game until the offense could come through.

Gavin Floyd looked very good tonight, and you wouldn't be an Orioles fan if you didn't think, "It figures. We finally get a good outing from Guthrie and the offense is going to just roll over." Like Guthrie, Floyd made just one mistake in the early innings, allowing a solo home run to Brian Roberts in the third inning. Inning after inning, Floyd and Guthrie traded zeroes. As each inning passed without the Orioles scoring, the more convinced I became that Guthrie would be the one to crack. For once, though, he didn't.

Going into the 8th inning, the score was still tied 1-1. Gavin Floyd struck out Matt Wieters to start the inning, then gave up a single to Felix Pie, allowing Brian Roberts to strike again, this time with a runner on. He hit the third pitch of the AB over the fence to give the Orioles a 3-1 lead.

Brian Roberts has been simply ridiculous lately. Tonight he hit home runs number 13 and 14 on the year, in his third straight game with a home run. Brian has only had more than 14 home runs once in his career, in 2005 when he hit 18. Brian is in the midst of an 11 game hitting streak, during which he is 20-for-51 (.392) with 8 doubles, 5 home runs, and 4 stolen bases (zero caught stealing). Whatever's going on, I hope it doesn't change. But back to the game...

An RBI triple to Nick Markakis three batters later made the score 4-1, leading to a little chess game between Guillen and Trembley.

With the lefty Thornton on the mound, Guillen opted to walk Reimold intentionally to get to Luke Scott. Trembley sent Ty Wigginton into the on deck circle to hit for Luke, so Guillen pulled Thornton for RHP Tony Pena. The move didn't work for Ozzie as Wiggy singled to center to score Markakis from third. The 5-1 lead put Guthrie in line for his first win in over a month.

Danys Baez came on to pitch the 8th, giving up one hit but nothing else, and Chris Ray pitched a perfect ninth to secure the win. Chris Ray is looking great lately and tonight he looked untouchable. Since returning from the DL, Ray has pitched 11.2 innings over 8 appearances, allowing 1 run and 2 walks while striking out 8. Ray has tested our patience over the years but maybe, just maybe, he's back.

O's win! Tomorrow night David Hernandez takes the mound as the Orioles look to win three straight for the first time since their five game win streak from 17-21 June.

Poll

Who was tonight's Most Birdland Player (MBP)?

Brian Roberts (2 HR, 3 RBI)

129 votes

Jeremy Guthrie (7 IP, 6 H, 1 R, 2 BB, 2 K)

47 votes

176 votes | Poll has closed

Brewers Pitching Philosophy: A Single Is Not Enough

TheJay — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 18:00:11 -0000

One week ago, roguejim wrote a post about just how lousy the Brewers starting rotation has been. Here are some more numbers showing just how hard Brewers starters have been hit.

Check out the fifteen highest slugging averages allowed by MLB pitchers with a minimum of 100 innings pitched in 2009. Note: these numbers are through August 17, so Parra's start last night and those of anyone else on the list are not included.

Name	SLG	IP	ERA	HR	W-L
Josh Geer	.561	102.2	5.96	27	1-7
Jeff Suppan	.512	114.1	5.27	18	5-8
Trevor Cahill	.506	139.1	4.97	25	6-12
Jeremy Guthrie	.506	140.0	5.66	28	7-12
Todd Wellemeyer	.498	112.2	5.67	17	7-9
Braden Looper	.496	143.0	5.03	30	10-6
Brian Moehler	.495	113.1	5.40	16	7-9
Jamie Moyer	.491	123.1	5.47	22	10-9
Livan Hernandez	.491	135.0	5.47	16	7-8
Armando Galarraga	.487	129.0	5.16	21	6-10
Brad Penny	.482	127.2	5.22	17	7-7
Jason Hammel	.479	118.0	4.73	11	7-7
Joe Saunders	.477	136.2	5.33	24	9-7
Aaron Harang	.471	155.1	4.35	24	6-14
Manny Parra	.470	107.2	6.44	12	8-8

The Brewers are the only team with more than one pitcher on that list and they very nearly had four. Jeff Suppan has seen his reputation improve with time spent on the DL, but Dave Bush has made out pretty well, too. He only had 81 innings pitched when he was placed on the DL, but his .534 slugging average allowed would have placed him second. If you add nineteen perfect innings to his season line, his resulting .450 still comes in 27th. If you're curious, Yovani Gallardo's .371 is 79th out of 102 qualifying pitchers.

I know including W-L records in anything is heresy these days, but it gives me an excuse to post this snippet originally found in the August 16 Elias Says column:

Braden Looper handed a 5-4 seventh-inning lead to the bullpen, but the Astros rallied against Brewers relievers to post an 8-5 win at Milwaukee. It was the fifth time this season that relievers relinquished a lead in a game in which Looper was in line for a victory. The only starting pitchers in the majors with more blown wins this season than Looper are Randy Wolf (7), Gavin Floyd (6) and Looper's mound opponent on Sunday, Roy Oswalt (6).

Strange to think that Looper could right now be the worst 15+ game winner in recent memory.

White Sox Gamble Again

Jesse — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 13:27:06 -0000

More photos » by Lenny Ignelzi - AP

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Kenny Williams might have just pulled off his second coup in the last two weeks.

Gambling on Jake Peavy was one thing. A Cy Young candidate when he's healthy, it's pretty easy to defend the $52 million Chicago will be shelling out for his services from 2010 - 2012, and maybe even that $22 million option in 2013 could look like a steal when the time comes. Now the Sox have added Alex Rios. He's having a down year, but there's no denying what he could bring to the table in the middle of the order for an aging lineup.

Like Peavy, Rios is owed a lot of money over the next few years. It's $58.7 million from 2010 - 2014, with a $13.5 million dollar option in 2015.

Prior to both of these shrewd maneuvers, the White Sox had approximately $45 million committed to their 2010 payroll, and roughly $28 million committed to 2011. (Figures courtesy of Cots Contracts.) With these two additions they still have room to maneuver, but I wonder how much.

Player	2010	2011
Jake Peavy, SP	$15,000,000	$17,000,000
Alex Rios, RF	$9,700,000	$12,000,000
Mark Buehrle, SP	$14,000,000	$14,000,000
Paul Konerko, 1B	$12,000,000	---
Jermaine Dye, RF	$1,000,000	---
A.J. Pierzynski, C	$6,250,000	---
Scott Linebrink, RP	$5,000,000	$5,000,000
Mike MacDougal, RP	$350,000	---
Dayan Viciedo (Minors)	$2,250,000	$2,250,000
Matt Thornton, RP	$250,000	---
Alexei Ramirez, 2B	$1,225,000	$1,225,000
Gavin Floyd, SP	$2,750,000	$5,000,000
Total	$69,775,000	$56,975,000

That's a lot of money. It doesn't include picking up options on Dye (add $11 million, if for some odd reason the Sox actually pick it up) or Thornton (add $2 million), paying Bobby Jenks more than $6 million for his second year of arbitration or Wilson Betemit around $2 million for his third, or money for first-year arb guys like John Danks and Carlos Quentin. Jim Thome, Octavio Dotel and Jose Contreras are all free agents.

If the White Sox are planning on duplicating this year's $95 million opening day payroll in 2010, it will be interesting to see how they choose to fill their open roster spots.

The genius behind both of these moves is that if they pay off and both Peavy and Rios play like they're capable of playing, Williams will have given Ozzie Guillen a pair of stud 29-year olds who inject high-level and prime-aged lifeblood that will keep Chicago's window of competetive ball open. The gamble, naturally, is that if Rios is closer to his '08 or '09 version than his '06 or '07 version, and/or if Peavy doesn't get and stay healthy, then Chicago has taken on over $100 million worth of contract for two guys.

I haven't always been a fan of the way Williams has run the White Sox, or the way he sometimes handles himself. But he made a couple of ballsy, high-risk, high-reward maneuvers these last couple of weeks, and nobody can accuse him of playing it safe or of not taking the risks necessary to put his club over the top. And the best part (for White Sox fans) is that it couldn't have come at a better time, whether you're thinking about 2009 or the future. Chicago has given playing time to 16 guys 32 or older just this year. This rejuvenation was necessary.

White Sox Full Moon Magic Eclipses Angels Momentum

Rev Halofan — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 02:47:14 -0000

More photos » by Charles Rex Arbogast - AP

Sean O'Moonface did alright until he faced guys twice his age.

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Final Score on the South Side of Chicago: Angels 2, Bad Bad Ozzie Guillen: 6

The White Sox had three homeruns and the Angels grounded into three double plays. End of necessary information about this game.

The Angels might have walked into Comiskular Park on Wednesday, but they crawled out, losing a Sean O'Sullivan start for the first time this season as well as surrendering the power in their bats in the face of adequate pitching. After two games of facing the White Sox in Chicago, Mike Scioscia can confidently call up Ron Gardenhire and say "Wow, you really have atrocious pitching..."

What can you do but tip your cap to some veterans who waited for a meaty pitch or two to do their damage. What is Sean-O supposed to do except rhetorically say "Hello, I am 21, Thome and Konerko have been playing this game longer than I have been alive and ... well ... her ya go bro, swing away..."

Meanwhile Gavin Floyd made sure the Angel bats produced pathetic squibbers with men on to yield three double plays and then humiliated Bobby Abreu's bat-on-the-shoulders strategy late in the game with men on base and the chance to get back into the game had arisen.

Well Wednesday bout an hour ago
Scioscia shootin' dice
And at the edge of the bar
Sat a girl named Victory
And ooh that girl looked nice
Well he cast his eyes upon her
And the trouble soon began
And MIke Scioscia learned a lesson
'bout messin with the wife of Ozzie Guillen

Poll

Blame of the Game

Sean O'Sullivan

71 votes

Darren Oliver

143 votes

Bobby Abreu

26 votes

240 votes | Poll has closed