Real Trouble

(July 1)

Short Take:  We're being laughed at.

On the eve of the most-important series of the entire season, the Chicago White Sox mailed it in.  A brain-dead performance from start to finish Sunday at Comiskey leads to an embarrassing 11-3 loss to Baltimore, another series loss for our Sox.  They don't look so hot anymore and everyone knows who is coming to town next to put a few more nails in our coffin.  Ugh.

34,588 Sox Fans were there to say farewell to Cal Ripken, collect Magglio Ordonez bobblehead dolls, and cheer the Sox in advance of this critical stretch of the schedule.  It started with great hope, Sox starter Rocky Biddle striking out the side in the first inning.  That was the high-point of the entire day for Biddle, the Sox, and Sox Fans.

The wheels came off the Sox championship cart the very next inning.  Biddle was lit for two runs on three hits.  The Orioles would never look back.  Not that they would have to since the Sox offense has never looked worse than they did in this one.

Jerry Manuel fielded what appeared to be one of his strongest-possible line ups against Birds starter Jason Johnson.  The Sox stumbled from one inning to the next leaving Sox Fans to wonder what life might be facing three more months of meaningless games.  Lead-off Ray Durham was a giant 0 for 5.  Jose Valentin hitting next in the line up was nearly as bad, 1 for 5.  Between the two of them they accounted for eleven Sox outs, both also grounding into double plays.

Want more ineptitude?  How about Paul Konerko.  He got one rbi while leaving seven others on base.  A sixth inning rally was for naught after a Sox Fan stupidly picked up a fair ball batted by Jeff Liefer allowing the umpires to rule a ground rule double and send Ray Durham back to third base on a play he would otherwise have scored on without challenge.

It's precisely at times like this that Sox Fans know with great certainty that the baseball gods are laughing at us.  

After that, the Sox went through the motions.  Jerry Manuel dusted off his roster card, discovered Ken Vining was still on the team and sent him in to pitch the seventh inning.  Five runs and seven hits later, Vining was pulled and left to contemplate what most-certainly is a return trip to Charlotte.  

An eighth inning rally ended abruptly when Jose Canseco ran through a stop sign to be tagged out from here to there at homeplate.  Ours is a hard lot, Sox Fans.

Two games beneath .500, ten games off the pace, and the Minnesota Twins are coming to town.  Put up or shut up time.