Well, this won’t be fun, but let’s take a look at Sunday’s game in which the Sox were swept for the first time in 2012.
– I said before that today’s start for Humber was as big as his last start. Well, we saw much of the same problems he had today that he had before his DL stint. And it boiled down to the same problem: command issues.
He constantly lets pitches get up in the zone and cannot keep the ball down. Unless you have a 98+ MPH fastball, it’s going to turn into a home run derby whenever that happens. Humber does have good stuff, but the Sox can’t sit around and wait for him to solve his command problems in a pennant race.
Photo courtesy TheSportHole.com
– What a job by the bullpen … Hector Santiago did a spectacular job keeping the team in the game, Nate Jones got the team out of a jam and Donnie Veal had another nice inning. This group definitely did their job today, and it’s the first time in a while we can be pleased with the bullpen’s performance.
– People are probably going to have some issues with Robin today because of not arguing the no-call on the Miguel Cabrera interference. However, if you want a bone to pick with Robin about something, look to the bottom of the ninth when he let Gordon Beckham hit with AJ Pierzynski on the bench. You need baserunners there, and low OBP Beckham isn’t a good fit to leadoff an inning. I don’t have any issues with him not putting up a bigger fuss with the umpire in the seventh, though. There’s a time and a place for arguing, but with the team already coming back in the game, I don’t think that was it.
– Getting swept was obviously the worst possible outcome in this series, but there’s still a ton of baseball left to be played this season. The Detroit Tigers will not play .750 or .800 baseball the rest of the season, and if they do, then tip your cap to those guys because they earned the division crown. Likewise, the Sox won’t play .300 baseball the rest of the season, and the offense won’t hit at a .200 clip. The Tigers may have more talent (which Zach disagrees with me here), but it certainly not by a huge margin, and the White Sox are going to be in this thing.
The Sox have a good opportunity to right the ship with three games at home against Minnesota before heading out on the road again. It looks like Gavin Floyd returns from the DL tomorrow, and hopefully he does as well as he was doing before he had his bout with soreness.
This offense needs to step it up, though, and the slump needs to end before the Tigers get too far ahead. A good week-or-so of baseball and this past road trip will be nearly forgotten.
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This post was written by Luke Stanczyk, editor of GSB!