Welcome to another addition of Streakers and Slumpers where we look at which White Sox players deserve our praise and adulation, and which players should be showered with boo’s upon their return to Chicago.  It was a roller coaster week for the Pale Hose as they won 3 out of 4 in Toronto but then were swept in Kansas City by the lowly Royals.

Streakers

Adam Dunn: A week ago the Big Donkey sat in our “Slumpers” category and was mired in his longest home run drought of the season.  What a difference a week makes.  Dunn goes out and hits 4 home runs on the road trip to bring his career total to 400.  He joins Paul Konerko as the first set of teammates to hit their 400th home runs in the same season.  Overall Dunn hit .269 with those 4 homers and a double, drove in 7 runs and scored 6 runs on the trip.  His OBP was .367 and had a very nice 1.136 OPS for the week.  Of his 4 homers 3 of them either tied the game or gave the Sox the lead and the other one brought them back within a run in the 8th inning of Saturday’s loss to KC.  Now Dunn returns to US Cellular Field without that “Get er Dunn” sign in right field staring him in the face.  Hopefully that helps him relax and set off the exploding scoreboard at home for the first time since July 24th against Minnesota.
Dayan Viciedo: Tank has found his ammunition once again.  After going through a prolonged slump and seeing his average dip below .250, Viciedo started coming on again this past week.  On the 7 game trip Tank hit .375 with 2 home runs and even drew a couple of walks.  He was hitting the ball to all fields and finally started to look comfortable at the plate.  The walks are telling that he is seeing the ball better, as he had gone 15 games since his last base on balls.  Hopefully this is a sign that Tank is starting to get hot again as the Sox could certainly use his production in the bottom half of the order.

Slumpers

Kevin Youkilis: It has been a real struggle of late for Youkilis.  He played in 6 of the 7 games last week and hit just .174 with 8 strikeouts, no extra base hits, 1 walk and no RBI.  Youk also committed his sixth error of the year at third base.  He was given the day off on Sunday to rest a sore right knee.  It is hard to say whether or not the knee is directly affecting his performance at the plate or not, but it certainly can’t be helping.  The Sox need Youkilis to be a factor down the stretch so getting him some rest now probably isn’t a bad idea.

Bullpen: I’m going to have to lump the entire White Sox bullpen into this spot, with the possible exception of Addison Reed who made only one appearance on the road trip and locked up a 4 out save.  For the trip the White Sox bullpen gave up 9 runs on 15 hits with 6 walks in 15.1 innings and racked up 2 losses.  The bullpen ERA for the trip was 5.28 and the WHIP was 1.37.  It was not a good road trip for the bullpen who bookended the trip with losses in the first and last games.