Usually when I say that I’ll keep anything Sox-related brief, I’m not able to. But I’m going to try my best here.
– As I’ve said many times on Twitter many times, the biggest problem for this Sox team right now is the starting rotation. However, luckily for the Sox it’s a problem that just may be able to be taken care of in-house. Gavin Floyd got off to a great start this season through about his seven starts, but took an extreme turn for the worse with his last six starts, as you all know. Without much support left for him around Chicago, Floyd came out strong, pitching 6 1/3 scoreless innings against the crosstown rivals to help the team avoid the sweep and hopefully take a little momentum into the weekend series.
With Floyd going bad, we have a sub-par rotation. But with him clicking, we have an above average one, especially when you remember that John Danks will be back for the 2nd half of the season. Is this start certainly going to turn it around for Gavin? No. But it may be the start of improved performance from Gavin, which with his ability could be plenty for the back-end of a rotation. Considering he has not had one single start anywhere close to “good” since May 11th, you have to at least be a little encouraged with his performance Wednesday night. And I hope you all stood up and applauded him from home when he came out of the game, like I did. Good for you, Gavin.
– It was also good to see the offense bounce back from pretty severe recent struggles to put up a comfortable seven runs for the pitchers. There’s not a whole lot profound to say here, though. We saw a lot of pitches, had many very good at bats, and capitalized when something was brewing in the 3rd and 6th innings. Being able to capitalize on opportunity is what offense boils down to in the great game of baseball, so that’s about as in-depth as you can get about tonight’s offensive performance. It is always good to see the likes of Adam Dunn and Gordon Beckham to have good nights at the plate, though.
Besides those couple main points, that’s about all I’ve got. It’s also worth noting that Matt Thornton looked very impressive after struggling with two losses this past weekend.
Hopefully the Sox can take some momentum from this game, as it’s the first time they’ve won the final game of a series since Blue Jays a couple weeks ago. Stay tuned to @Grab_Some_Bench on Twitter for more of the latest!
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This post by @zach_gropper, Founder and Managing Editor of Grab Some Bench! Go, Go White Sox!