By Paul M. Banks
Say what you want about the 2010 Chicago White Sox, but at least they hold true to form. Everyone talks about how up-and-down they are, how they (warning: a cliché as painful as Jim Belushi coming) “are consistently inconsistent.” But it’s not entirely true. About 30 games into the season, they give you exactly what you expect. The Sox look terrible against average and winning teams, but they can handle the bad teams. With one exception:
I’ve organized and broken down the record of the 12-17 White Sox by opponent. It’s listed in order of best winning percentage to worst, with the team’s record in parentheses, followed by the Sox record against each opponent. (As of Friday afternoon, May 7th)
Tampa Bay Rays (21-7) 1-2
New York Yankees (19-8) 1-2
Minnesota Twins (19-10) 1-2
Toronto Blue Jays (17-13) 2-3
Texas Rangers (15-14) 1-2
Kansas City Royals (12-18) 2-1
Seattle Mariners (11-17) 3-0
Cleveland Indians (10-17) 1-5
You’ll notice the only exception is the inexplicable and unjustifiable 1-5 against the bottom-feeding Indians. But don’t take my word for how bad the Indians are, watch this video from one of their own announcers. Against losing teams the Sox are 6-6, or 5-1 without the Cleveland anomaly. Versus winning teams they’re 6-11.
There are many reasons for this, but we can save those for future articles. For now, let’s focus on the deep literal hole in the two-hole of the lineup. We all expected Gordon Beckham, one of last year’s top rookies to be “coming out swinging like Tiger Woods’ wife” (Apologies to Ludacris) this season. Well, he’s been swinging; and missing. He’s been more disappointing than both Austin Powers sequels combined.
Manager Ozzie Guillen said he is not a fan of Beckham’s body language after Thursday’s loss. “When you see him put his hands on his hips, it’s not baseball- shaking his head every time he makes out.”
Beckham, who hit .270 with 14 HRs last year, went 0-for-4 with three Ks last night. He added two errors in the field. His batting average is dropping like the readership of that crappy Milwaukee Brewers blog that stupidly picked a fight with us last summer. “Bacon” is now at .198 and says the problems are more upstairs than they are in his swing. He added “a lot of this is self-inflicted.”
Maybe he was brought up too soon last year? Maybe he needs to go back to Charlotte to figure it out?
Most Sox fans are expecting his career to develop like Aimee Teegarden in “Friday Night Lights,” becoming more pleasant to watch and with an increased role every year.
Whatever the issue is, Bacon needs to quickly become crisper, and produce more meat for this batting order. Right now his presence is somewhat Artie Lange-like, a layer of useless flab weighing down a rather punchless lineup.