On a beautiful day at the Ballpark in Arlington, it was a slow start for the White Sox. However, that does not mean that it was all bad for the south siders.
Positives:
1.) Adam Dunn looked great. A 431 foot bomb of a homer in a crucial point of the ballgame was impressive on multiple levels. He also hit a scorching liner that Mike Napoli snagged and showed patience while drawing a walk in the top of the first inning. He also struck out, and I think that was a good thing, too. Why? It reminded us White Sox faithful that he isn’t going to be able to put the strikeouts behind him as a whole. We can’t expect to never see Adam whiff through some high heaters, even when he’s on a hot streak. It’s the territory that comes with the big man. The fact that he was able to bounce back after that and keep his head up was great. I see no reason why Dunn doesn’t return to his form of old this year, he’s just gotta keep his head up. Well, keep it down when swinging, but you know what I mean.
2.) John Danks didn’t give us anything special, but you’ve got to remember how tough it is to pitch against the Rangers’ lineup in that ballpark. Unfortunately for Johnny, he’s got some big and ‘Buehrle’ shoes to fill. But on the positive side, I think he can do it. He doesn’t have to win a Cy Young award, he just has to keep us in the game and give us opportunities to win some ball games in late innings…which is exactly what he did in his first Opening Day start. It was a good day battling nerves for our newly crowned ‘number one.’
Danks hurling a pitch in today's Opening Day game
3.) Hector Santiago had a great day without even making an appearance. The young, screw-balling left-hander basically won the closer job today as we saw Addison Reed and Matt Thornton, two of the other guys battling for the position, came in for the 7th and 8th innings, respectively. You may say that Jesse Crain, the other candidate, still has a shot, but that simply wouldn’t make sense because it would leave 2 out of our 3 set up men being south paws. I’ve been praising this kid for almost a year after I saw him strike out a few at US Cellular Field in a relief appearance last summer. I see no reason why he can’t be successful after seeing what Sergio Santos did last year. Also, it let’s Crain and Thornton stay in their set-up roles, where they’re most comfortable. This move will go on to benefit us in multiple ways.
Negatives:
1.) Brent Morel looked bad. He didn’t simply bring in the golden sombrero against Colby Lewis and the Rangers’ staff, he looked…well, bad while doing it. Morel looked good in small waves last season. It was easy to point out what he was doing wrong. He had zero patience at the plate. Once someone has reached the major leagues, it’s hard for them to learn how to take a walk. They’re baseball genes are just too far developed. But that didn’t mean Brent was out of luck. There’s a difference between an aggressive hitter and an impatient hitter, so he obviously had to strive to learn how to be agressive without being impatient. But on Friday, it didn’t really look like he’d thought about that. He chased bad pitch after bad pitch, and his stat line reflected it with 4 K’s. The MAJOR problem with this is that he’s in the number 2 slot in the order. That hitter needs to be able to get runners over so the next few hitters can get them in. Pretty much all that can be said for now is that Brent is going to have to work on that or the other Brent (Lillibridge), or maybe even newly acquired Connor Jackson could be taking over for him sometime this season.
2.) Hitting with RISP: You can’t start off 0-7 when runners are in scoring position and expect to win. But I know, it’s early, so it would be extremely unfair to say “here we go again” just yet. Maybe it’s just the Sox getting it out of their system early. The Sox lone 2 runs came on Dunn’s solo shot and Alexei Ramirez’s RBI double scoring Alex Rios after he reached base by a HBP. Let’s just hope this is the first is not the first of many for your Chicago White Sox.