As the White Sox enter the home stretch, there is little doubt what the key is to the remaining season. The Bullpen. Okay stop laughing. We all know its the offense. Or dare I say lack of offense. The seven runs the squad put up on Sunday is the equivalent of the red sea parting, especially because they "won" in the process. How bad has it been? The last 49 games the Pale Hose have scored 179 runs for an avg of 3.65 runs a game. During the same span they gave up 183, so I guess going 25-24 is probably appropriate. Other than the Yankee bitchslap fest the pitching is the sole reason the White Sox wake up today only 5.5 games out. Well that and newsflash*** the central division is not very good. So in our perfectly legit world of "arbitrary dates" and with roughly 50 games to go in the season, lets see what the frak has been going on in the past 50.

via i808.photobucket.com

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One of the more fun jokes on South Side are the attempts to justify various points by picking an arbitrary date to prove a point. "Player X is doing well since May 1st. Over the last 2 weeks. Since Greg Walker was fir-……" You get the point.

What's the saying? There are Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics. As a result and in the same spirit I've decided on the 1st quarter mark to look at the Pale Hose offense.  Well that and the fact they sucked more than usual at the end of April.

The White Sox offense has been a little like the Chicago Weather. 2 days (or weeks) of blistering heat, followed by some off the chart fall to cold streakiness and then finally settling into an average temp the city should have probably been anyway.

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Newsflash. The White Sox hitting is killing them. Whether its because we found out Dunn (Samson) had his hair cut or worse appendix removed, Rios continuing his descent in Dante's hell or Beckham's allergies to fastballs, consistently scoring 3 runs or less makes it pretty damn hard to win. So what about the pitching?

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From Wiki:

In the Bizarro world of "Htrae" ("Earth" spelled backwards), society is ruled by the Bizarro Code which states "Us do opposite of all Earthly things! Us hate beauty! Us love ugliness! Is big crime to make anything perfect on Bizarro World!"

Try this one on for size. The White Sox led the majors  AL in runs for the month of August. Like the sound of that? I do. Haven't heard that in awhile.  Normally such info would cause even Mayor Daley to run through the streets of Chicago naked but not today because in Bizarro world you can't have one odd reality without another. So instead of teaming that offense with the kick ass pitching we'd grown to love. Bizarro demands a slide from the starters and an implosion by a very good bullpen. Bizarro demands a team winning 1 run games to go 2-9 in them including 7 straight. That's how you end a month with + 20 run differential but a below .500 record. SSS aint it a bitch? (thanks Colin)

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Okay so Joe Friday really didn't say that. Its still a cool catch phrase and serves its duty for the abbreviated intro. Want continued drama for a sports team? Insert your 2010 Chicago White Sox. Maybe they should do a show or something? Anyhow due to the combination of kids and work I'll skip my normal attempt at humor (polite golf clap) and just give you a quick reference for some of the advanced numbers.

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This break is driving me crazy! I want White Sox baseball! Figured I peruse some sites.... RIP George.

Random search of AL Central chatter and  a little generall baseball....

Lets start with the staples and shame on you if you don't visit Sox Machine on regular basis. He breaks down Hudson's nervous performance.

JJ looks at regression candidates for the pale hose in the second half.


Are the Twins grounding into double plays out of the central race?

Gleeman looks at Twins pitching and what they should do.

Bless you boys compares 2nd half schedules.

For the brave WTF were the Philles thinking with Cliff Lee?

Some Fantasy 2nd half predictions for you.

and finally CHONE updates hitters and pitchers.

The Sox reached the half way point last night. I think most fans now realize the all star break really isn't 2 equal halves. Whatever. There was a lot of talk about WAR preseason and what it would take for the Sox to succeed. Some of us even gave a preseason line or 2 for players. I thought it might be interesting to take a snapshot (camera click sound) and looked what the men in black have given us so far. Look at it. Smell it. Taste it. Now give it back. What do you think the final numbers will be? Come on common folk. No fancy protractor or calc equations (okay a few- Colin can't help him self). Also no lazy updated Zips. This is just Pete's eyeball test and KW's gut. Do a few. Just curious of people's opinion of what's to come.

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Maybe I should just take a poll for themes of reviews. With my love of movies I spent a fair amount of time trying to craft an interesting opening to describe the June revival/turnaround. Some of my failures:

Trading Places.  The Story of a wily street con team (the White Sox) who find themselves trading places with the snobby minor league investors (the Twins) on the whim of callous saberheads. ("Uh genius they are still in 3rd") Trash Can.

Return of the Living Dead. After being exposed (yet again- hey it is a sequel) to the toxic fumes of actually having to watch a pitcher bat (double switch my ass-it sucks) the recently deceased White Sox arise from the dead and go on a murderous rampage devouring the brains of fans, sportswriters and whiny AL Central teams harping on schedule inequity. Hmmm.... Potential. Aww too gruesome. Trash can.

Old School. Several Palehose are disenchanted with life and try to recapture the glory of the 2005 World Series season. They streak. "Honey we're streaking!". They have old men perform above expectations for excellence, while one of them dies (Andrew Jones). "You're my boy Blue!" Naw that's a stretch. Though I must admit I've had a few earmuff moments for my kids while watching the early season. Trashed.

Bad News Bears. Cast of misfits pull it together after losing to go on a glorious run in baseball. Hmmm. Well 2 big problems. 1st Ozzie is not a down on his luck manager (hey he tweets) and 2nd "They didn't win any DAMN thing." They lost the most important one. Triple trashed.

Too hard. Besides baseball doesn't have any creativity. I honestly can't think of a sport that use more cliches. It's full of potential interviews like THIS.

So I'll just go back to the oldest of them and most tried and true.

It's not over til the FAT LADY SINGS.

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One of my favorite horror movies was on the other day. In addition to scaring the crap out of me the 1st time I saw it (it was late and dark- did I say it was late?) , there were some great face off scenes with 2 of the main characters. There is the answer seeking Dr. Dennis Allen and his formidable absolutely terrifying foe Dargent Peytraud.  Call it good vs evil. Out of boredom I googled some of the memorable quotes.

Dargent Peytraud: By the way, Doctor Allen. What did you dream about this afternoon? A woman in your arms? The sea at your doorstep? Nooooo! You dreamt of me and of the grave. I know because I was there. And I can be there every time you close your eyes. The pain I cause you, in the room upstairs, is nothing to the pain I can cause in your own mind. Remember that... Doctor Allen.

Kind of reminds me of the pitching staff huh? I dreamed of a 2005 staff......

Look. The White Sox are trying to ruin my summer. Larry recently remarked to me, "let it go Tdogg its over." One step forward, two steps back. I thought back to the Serpent and the Rainbow. Many of the lines reminded me of the current White Sox and the horror that one would feel with a premature burial. Is there hope?

Dennis Alan: Don't let them bury me! I'm not dead!

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Okay we get it. It's been hammered into this community all too well. It's been justified (sorry timberlake). It's been mocked and it's been plainly well-explained. If it weren't we'd know that:

-Paul Konerko will hit 80 homers this season - really he will.

-Robinson Cano is the best hitter in the game.

-Livan Hernandez will challenge Tim Lincecum and Roy Halladay for NL Cy Young

Now Kong will hit his dingers, Cano is actually very good and Livan maybe drank an elixir, BUT I'd give 1,000 to 1 odds right now that not 1 of those things above will remain true. Okay maybe not 1,000 to 1. Cano kind of scares me. Of course SSS doesn't erase or soothe the feelings of being 6 games back in the standings. Bet somebody 10 dollars a coin flip. Go down 60 bucks quickly and let them talk about sample size.

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I figured since I am officially the symbol of hope (figuratively and literally) , I would throw out my expectations for the remaining rat race in regards to the pale hose and Motown. It might be fun for others to join in. Even the pessimists are welcome. Note my predictions do not reflect the views or opinions of the editors of SSS….

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Fox Mulder: Are you asking me to give up?
Dana Scully: No. No, I can't ask you to do that... But I can tell you I won't be coming home tonight.

Its that time of month again. By now you know the drill. A quick recap and a nice place to look at a few advanced stats in one place.

Not a huge fan of the X files sequel but I could not help but feel a lot like Mulder; confused, searching and wanting to believe.

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Folks seemed to dig the April review, so I thought I'd press my luck and offer a quick recap of May/ up to date. Again I don't expect you to become suddenly more enlightened but not everyone feels like looking for advanced stats.

The title speaks for itself as the palehose pay homage to Mr. Pacino in Godfather III.

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After yesterday’s win I thought it would be a good time to take a stab at summing up the month of April. Call it a state of the Southside (think we could get President Obama to give it?). I am by no means a wordsmith so most of this will just be the numbers. Numbers that make you go "meh." 

Consider:

Record 11-10

RS 97

RA 98

Most games over or under .500 – 2

Longest winning streak and losing streak – 3

All that adds up to a 1st place tie and 4 teams separated by 1 whole game. May 1st equals a mulligan.

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