White Sox begin nine-game trip with typical Cleveland loss

Michael Brantley

The White Sox are 12-25 in their past 37 games in Cleveland, so we shouldn't be surprised that their first road game against the Indians this year ended with an archetypal punch to the groin.

Sox reliever Tommy Kahnle (0-1) retired the first two batters in the bottom of the 10th inning, but then he walked Francisco Lindor and gave up a game-winning double to Michael Brantley as the Indians came away with a 2-1 victory.

It's too bad, because the Sox wasted a serviceable start by the erstwhile James Shields. The veteran right-hander gave up a solo home run to Lindor in the bottom of the first inning, but nothing more over 5.1 innings. He allowed only two hits, walked two and retired 12 consecutive Cleveland hitters at one point.

Given the garbage we saw from Shields last year, how can we complain about that performance against one of the better lineups in the American League? We can't.

And, the Sox bullpen covered 13 more outs before Kahnle finally cracked in the bottom of the 10th.

Have we mentioned the fact that the Sox can't hit? Yeah, it's becoming a theme. Other than Todd Frazier's solo home run in the fifth inning, the offense generated little. The Sox were 0 for 6 with runners in scoring position and four of the nine starters finished the game 0 for 4.

The best scoring chance came in the top of the eighth inning against Cleveland bullpen ace Andrew Miller, of all people. Geovany Soto walked and advanced to third on a double by pinch-hitter Matt Davidson with one out.

With runners on second and third, Tyler Saladino hit a Miller slider right on the screws, but his line drive landed in the glove of diving Cleveland third baseman Yandy Diaz. Good defense by Diaz, bad luck for Saladino. If that one gets through, the Sox (2-4) take a 3-1 lead. Alas, it did not, and Tim Anderson swung over the top of two Miller sliders and basically struck himself out to end the threat.

The Indians also missed an opportunity in the eighth inning, thanks to some curious managing by Terry Francona. Sox reliever Nate Jones was laboring; he walked the first two hitters. But Francona for some reason ordered the red-hot Lindor to sacrifice bunt, which he did.

Sure, that gave Cleveland (4-3) runners on second and third with one out, but it opened the door for Sox manager Rick Renteria to walk Brantley intentionally and set up the double play. That's precisely what Renteria did. Jones got a righty-on-righty matchup that was favorable for him against Cleveland's Edwin Encarnacion, and he induced a 5-4-3 double play to keep the game tied. Good managing by Renteria, not so good by Francona, who is normally the game's best.

Unfortunately, given a second life, the Sox's offense was too inept to scratch across a run and steal a winnable game.

White Sox lose two out of three to Minnesota Twins

Avisail Garcia

The Minnesota Twins lost a league-worst 103 games last season, but they've surprised the American League with a 5-1 start this year. Minnesota starting pitchers have racked up quality starts in five of the team's first six games, and not surprisingly, all five of those games resulted in wins.

The Twins took two out of three from the White Sox over the weekend at Guaranteed Rate Field. Here are some observations from the series:

Friday, April 8
Twins 3, White Sox 1: If we're being honest with ourselves, we know the Sox are going to struggle offensively. They don't have much power, and they were limited to seven hits (six singles, one double) by Minnesota starter Phil Hughes (1-0) and two relievers in this loss.

Poor defense cost Sox starter Derek Holland (0-1) a gift run in the fourth inning. He tried to pick Robbie Grossman off second base and tossed the ball into center field, allowing Grossman to advance to third. The Minnesota runner later scored when Sox right fielder Avisail Garcia dropped a shallow fly ball that was not nearly deep enough to be a sacrifice fly.

Grossman also scored the go-ahead run in the sixth on a double by Miguel Sano. In the seventh, a leadoff walk to Eduardo Escobar bit Holland, as a double by Chris Gimenez off Sox reliever Nate Jones scored Minnesota's third run.

This game featured Rick Renteria's first glaring managerial mistake of the season. With the Sox trailing 3-1 after eight innings, he put Jacob May in center field in place of Leury Garcia -- presumably for defensive purposes. Naturally, May ended up at the plate after Avisail Garcia and Geovany Soto drew two-out walks with two outs in the bottom of the ninth.

The rookie, who is hitless through five games, was seemingly unaware that the previous two hitters had walked. He swung at the first pitch from Minnesota closer Brandon Kintzler and grounded out to second base to end the game. Fail.

Saturday, April 9
White Sox 6, Twins 2: The Sox executed pretty well offensively in the game, knocking Minnesota starter Adalberto Mejia out of the box early with a run in the first inning and two more in the second.

In both innings, the Sox placed a runner on second base with no outs. Both times, they brought the runner around to score. Tyler Saladino doubled to start the game, advanced to third on a grounder to the right side by Tim Anderson and scored when Melky Cabrera grounded out to short with the Minnesota infield back.

Todd Frazier walked and stole second base in the second inning. Avisail Garcia did the right thing -- he looked to hit the ball to the right side -- and he drove one off the right-field wall for an RBI triple. Garcia scored later in the inning when the Twins botched a rundown off a failed suicide squeeze attempt by Soto.

Sox starter Miguel Gonzalez (1-0) protected the lead through six innings. He gave up a two-run homer to Jason Castro in the sixth, but walked off the mound with a 3-2 lead. Garcia and Soto hit back-to-back homers in the bottom of the sixth to account for three more runs, providing the final margin of victory.

Garcia finished a double short of the cycle. He went 3 for 4 with two runs scored and three RBIs.

Saturday, April 10
Twins 4, White Sox 1: Again, the big hit was lacking for the Sox. They had 11 runners reach base and stranded 10 of them. The good news: They took five walks and had one man reach on an HBP. The bad news: They had only five hits, and all of them were singles.

The lineup had no punch against Minnesota's best pitcher, Ervin Santana (2-0). The right-hander went six innings, and he allowed only two hits.

Sox ace Jose Quintana (0-2) pitched much better than he did in the home opener. He had his typical quality start, allowing two runs on five hits over 6.1 innings. Alas, he left with the Sox trailing 2-0, and had nothing to show for a respectable effort.

Minnesota increased its lead to 4-0 in the eighth when Sano got a not-high-enough fastball from Jones and knocked it over the center field wall for a two-run homer.

The Sox had their chance in the bottom of the eighth inning. They loaded the bases with one out against Minnesota reliever Matt Belisle. But, Matt Davidson basically struck himself out by swinging at a Belisle fastball that was up and out of the zone. It was a rally-killing at-bat, to say the least.

Kintzler entered the game and plunked Avisail Garcia with a pitch to the give the Sox their lone run, but then he struck out Yolmer Sanchez, who flailed helplessly at a pitch in the dirt for strike three.

One area the Sox must improve: They need to cut down on their strikeouts. They are letting pitchers off the hook by swinging at pitches out of the zone in RBI situations. It's a long-standing problem, and part of the problem is they need to get better players. Davidson and Sanchez likely will never be good hitters at the big-league level. But in the meantime, Renteria and his staff need to preach more patience at the plate.

Surprise, surprise, James Shields secures first White Sox win of 2017

James Shields gave up 40 home runs last year, including 31 in the 22 starts he made after the White Sox acquired him in a midseason deal with the San Diego Padres.

So, I wasn't expecting good results Thursday when Shields took the mound at Guaranteed Rate Field on a day where the winds were gusting out to right field at 25 to 30 mph. I figured the Detroit Tigers would hit at least three home runs off the veteran right-hander.

Matt Davidson

Well, surprise, surprise. Shields hung in there for 5.1 innings and earned the win in an 11-2 White Sox victory. It wasn't the best pitching performance I've ever seen -- Shields walked five and struck out five -- but he allowed only one run on two hits. He gave up one home run -- a solo shot by Tyler Collins in the second inning -- and it was the Sox hitters who best took advantage of the windy conditions.

The South Siders hit three home runs. The biggest one came from catcher Geovany Soto, whose 3-run shot in the bottom of the third inning gave the Sox a 5-1 lead and knocked Detroit starter Matt Boyd out of the game.

Matt Davidson added a long 3-run homer (estimated at 428 feet) in the bottom of the fourth inning -- his first in a Sox uniform -- off Detroit reliever Anibal Sanchez to make the score 9-1.

For good measure, Soto added a solo shot in the seventh inning for his first two-homer game since 2011.

The most eye-opening thing about Thursday's game was the performance of Davidson, who also tripled, walked and scored three runs as part of a 2-for-3 day as designated hitter.

I'm on record as a Davidson nonbeliever. He's 26 years old, and he still strikes out too much -- despite his prodigious power. That said, I've been wrong about people before, and Davidson should be getting at-bats ahead of Cody Asche, lefty-righty matchups be damned.

This is Asche's fifth year in the big leagues. He already has 1,291 plate appearances under his belt. His career slash line is .240/.298/.384. At this point, I think it is safe to say those numbers reflect who he is. Perhaps he'll stick around for a while because he bats left-handed, but he's a fringe player.

It's possible, maybe even likely, that Davidson is a fringe player as well. However, Davidson has made only 93 plate appearances at the big-league level across parts of four seasons. He's struck out 26 times, which is way too much, and has a slash line of .259/.355/.506.

That's not enough sample size to make any firm judgments. I'd be in favor of letting Davidson play. The Sox aren't going anywhere this year. It's as good a time as any to find out what they have in him, if they have anything at all.

The Sox (1-1) will next host the Minnesota Twins (3-0) for a three-game weekend series at Guaranteed Rate Field. Here are the pitching matchups:

Friday: Derek Holland vs. Phil Hughes
Saturday: Miguel Gonzalez vs. Adalberto Mejia
Sunday: Jose Quintana (0-1) vs. Ervin Santana (1-0)

White Sox sign Mike Pelfrey, place Jake Petricka on disabled list

Mike Pelfrey

The White Sox on Wednesday signed veteran right-hander Mike Pelfrey to a minor-league deal.

Pelfrey, 33, joined the Detroit Tigers before the 2016 season on a two-year deal worth $16 million. That didn't work out so well, as Pelfrey went 4-10 with a 5.07 ERA in 24 games (22 starts) in 119 innings.

The Tigers released Pelfrey last week.

This is a pitcher whose good years are in the deep past. Pelfrey's best season was 2010 with the New York Mets, when he went 15-9 with a 3.66 ERA in 34 games (33 starts).

Since 2013, Pelfrey has made 86 starts with the Minnesota Twins and Tigers, going 15-37 with a 4.97 ERA, along with a 1.593 WHIP.

Yes, he is terrible, and this is the kind of signing that a rebuilding team makes. Pelfrey is going to Charlotte, but we'll probably see him called up if Jose Quintana is traded, or if Carlos Rodon's arm injury persists, or if someone else in the current major-league rotation succumbs to injury.

Pelfrey is an insurance policy against having to rush a prospect to the big leagues unnecessarily. He is roster filler, and if he is making starts on the South Side of Chicago, most of those games will probably not end well for the Sox.

Petricka to DL; Kahnle recalled

The Sox have placed relief pitcher Jake Petricka on the 10-day disabled list with strained lat.

Petricka, 28, was limited to nine appearances in 2016 because of a torn labrum in his hip that required surgery. He appeared in Tuesday's season-opener, in which he tossed a scoreless inning with one strikeout and two walks.

Right-hander Tommy Kahnle takes Petricka's place on the roster. Kahnle had a 2.69 ERA in in 23 relief appearances with the Sox last year.

As we've always said about Kahnle, he'll never stick until he learns to command his high-90s fastball. It's great that he had 25 strikeouts in 27.1 innings last year. It's good that he allowed only 21 hits. Too bad he walked 20. That's the problem. It's surprising his ERA was so low when he put that many runners on base.

Hopefully, before year's end, the Sox will have players more interesting than Kahnle (and Pelfrey) who are ready to be called up from the minors.

Wednesday's White Sox-Tigers game postponed; James Shields starts Thursday

Wednesday afternoon's game between the White Sox and Detroit Tigers was postponed because of rain.

The game will be made up at 4:10 p.m. Friday, May 26, as part of a straight doubleheader.

James Shields, who was scheduled to pitch Wednesday for the Sox, will take his regular turn in Thursday's 1 p.m. series finale against the Tigers, weather permitting. (The forecast still sucks.)

The Tigers are making an adjustment in their rotation. Left-hander Matt Boyd, who was originally supposed to pitch Saturday against the Boston Red Sox, has been moved up to start Thursday's game.

Observations from the first White Sox game of 2017

Jose Quintana

White Sox pitcher Jose Quintana has a reputation for being able to keep the ball in the yard, but he couldn't do it Tuesday.

The Detroit Tigers hit three home runs off Quintana in the first game of the 2017 season, accounting for all their runs in a 6-3 victory over the Sox at Guaranteed Rate Field.

Detroit scored five runs in the top of the second inning, three on a homer by JaCoby Jones and two more on a homer by Nick Castellanos.

Quintana uncharacteristically failed to put hitters away -- Jones hit his home run on a hanging curveball on the seventh pitch of the sequence, and Castellanos hit a fastball out on the sixth pitch of his at-bat. The two long balls turned an early 1-0 Sox lead into a 5-1 deficit.

Detroit's Ian Kinsler added a solo home run in the fourth inning to complete the Tigers' scoring.

Obviously, Quintana's rough outing and Detroit's home run power were the difference in the game, but here are a couple early observations on new Sox manager Rick Renteria's lineup construction:

1. I like that Tyler Saladino is batting leadoff. The second baseman reached base three times Tuesday, going 2 for 4 with a pair of singles, a walk and a run scored. The Sox do not have an ideal No. 1 hitter on their roster, but for the time being, Saladino represents the best choice. He's been in the league for a year and a half now, he has some speed, and it doesn't seem as if he'll change his approach based upon where he hits in the lineup.

2. I'm glad Renteria resisted the temptation to put rookie Jacob May in the leadoff spot. May was 0 for 4 with two strikeouts Tuesday in his big-league debut, although he did collect his first RBI on a groundout in the ninth inning. Past Sox managers (Ozzie Guillen, cough, cough) would insist upon putting a slap-hitting speedster at the top of the lineup, even if that speedster has a low on-base percentage, strikes out a lot and shouldn't be getting the most at-bats of anyone on the team. In May's case, he should be batting ninth until he gets acclimated to facing major leaguers on a daily basis. Tuesday, he was right where he belonged: batting ninth.

3. That said, I'd like to see Tim Anderson batting a little lower in the lineup for the time being. He strikes out too much to be batting second, and he went 0 for 4 with three Ks in Tuesday's opener. The strikeouts all followed the same pattern -- Anderson fell behind in the count and ended up swinging and missing for strike three on fastballs up and out of the zone. I hope Anderson doesn't get the label of "can't hit it, can't lay off it" when it comes to high fastballs, because that is not a recipe for success. He can ask another ex-Sox infielder who was once highly touted about that (Gordon Beckham, cough, cough). I'd rather have Anderson hit sixth right now. Move Melky Cabrera, who had two doubles off Justin Verlander on Tuesday, up to the No. 2 spot. The good news for Anderson? That high fastball is not a strike, so he doesn't need to be able to hit it. He does, however, need to discipline himself to not swing at that garbage.

White Sox Opening Day shenanigans predictable

My girlfriend, Jen, and I combined to spend zero dollars on concessions Monday at White Sox Opening Day.

We were talking and looking at the weather forecast Sunday night, and both of us were less than enthusiastic for the home opener vs. the Detroit Tigers -- we had a gut feeling the game was going to get rained out.

And it was rained out.

I just wish the Sox would have told fans that there would be no game at 10 o'clock in the morning, instead of 5 p.m. It would have saved me the trip down to the South Side, fighting traffic and whatnot, to see not one single pitch of baseball.

The last time weather caused the Sox home opener to be postponed? It was in 2009, and on the Sunday night before the scheduled game, the club announced that the game would be played Tuesday, instead of Monday, and fans had time to adjust their schedules accordingly.  That's the right way to do it, and many Sox fans applauded the way the situation was handled.

Alas, times have changed, and that's not the way the Sox do business any longer. In 2009, the Sox were coming off a division championship in 2008. They were only four years removed from winning the World Series. They still had a strong season-ticket holder base. They still were getting decent attendance totals for games other than the home opener and the crosstown series. If some fans couldn't come that Tuesday, hey, no big deal, there would still be quite a few fans there that day and every other day during the season.

Fast forward to 2017, the team hasn't made the playoffs since 2008, hasn't had a winning season since 2012 and has embarked on a rebuilding project that will almost certainly render the club to second-division status for the next three years. Fan apathy is at an all-time high. There are probably only four home games all season that fans are going to show up to -- the home opener, the Mark Buehrle jersey retirement ceremony on June 24 and the two crosstown games.

Knowing this, during our discussion Sunday night, Jen and I both agreed about what was going to happen: There was no way they were going to call the game early. They were going to make sure the crowd of 40,000 came down to the stadium, and they were going to drag it out as long as possible before announcing the game was postponed. Game or no game, they wanted fans to eat, drink and be merry, pay that concession money and line Jerry Reinsdorf's coffers. Because, starting Tuesday, it will be a couple months before you see 40,000 fans at Guaranteed Rate Field again.

We're longtime Sox fans, so we weren't going to fall for that crap. We ate at Rocky's, our favorite Bridgeport bar, before the game. The Sox no doubt made money hand over fist from the fans who didn't know any better, but we didn't give them a dime. Sure, I paid my $20 parking fee, but the ticket says I can turn it in for $20 worth of Comiskey Cash in the event the game is rained out. You can be 100 percent sure I'll be doing just that. No extra profits for Reinsdorf after he wasted my Monday afternoon.

The Sox even went about the business of having the pregame ceremonies during a short break in the rain, right around 3:30. They pulled the tarp back just far enough for the players to have room to stand along the foul lines (see picture). The national anthem was sung. Then the tarp was pulled back just far enough for former Sox outfielder Scott Podsednik to throw out a ceremonial first pitch.

But once that was over, the tarp went back on, to a chorus of boos from fans who did not know better. Jen and I, and our friend, Brian, were not fooled. We've all been Sox fans since we were little kids. We saw the radar on our smartphones. We saw that starting pitchers Jose Quintana and Justin Verlander never came onto the field. Note to novice fans: They aren't serious about playing the game until the pitchers appear and start warming up.

Predictably, they kept the park open and sold concessions for 90 more minutes after the "pregame" ceremonies. Some of us just laughed at the absurdity of it all. Predictable shenanigans. Predictable White Sox money grab. Then, with the rain coming down, they called it.

And, oh, the stadium escalators were turned off after they announced the game was postponed, so everyone had to walk down the ramps in the pouring rain. Thanks for that, Sox. I'm sure they turned off the escalators for "fan safety" or some such nonsense.

For many of us, we've seen it all before, and we're not surprised. And then the Sox wonder why they don't have as many fans as they once did ...