Saturday, June 7, 2008

No Power Signal from U.S. Cellular Field?

It’s no secret that Jermaine Dye, Nick Swisher, Paul Konerko, Joe Crede and Jim Thome aren’t getting it done.Jermaine Dye has a respectable batting average at .286, but he has just 23 RBI and nearly 3 strikeouts to every walk.Joe Crede has the most RBI of the quintet with 29, but 22 of those came during his red-hot April.Jim Thome has at least managed double-digit homeruns with 10, but his .212 average and team-high 56 strikeouts leave something to be desired.Paul Konerko is hitting .205 with just 6 HR.Nick Swisher is the most consistent of the group. He’s consistently terrible in every category, batting .201 with 4 HR and 14 RBI. Now what most people don’t realize is that the White Sox played 20 games on the road in May, but they return to their hitter friendly confines for 17 games in June. They will host Kansas City, Minnesota, Colorado, Pittsburgh and their cross-town rivals from Wrigley.They’ll not only be in one of the most hitter friendly parks in baseball, but they’ll also be facing tougher pitching in batting practice than they will in most of the games.Kansas City’s best hope was Zach Grienke and the Sox tagged him for 8 run in 6 innings in their first home tilt of the month. The next two scheduled starters for KC are Luke Hochevar and Gil Meche. Each pitcher has an ERA close to 5 or worse.Minnesota will bring a very suspect pitching staff to town. The Twins haven’t been able to recover since losing Johan Santana via trade and Francisco Liriano to injury. Livan Hernandez(4.81 ERA) and Boof Bonser(5.97 ERA) will likely get starts.The Rockies staff isn’t going to scare anyone either. Aaron Cook has been solid this year, but the rest of the guys with 2 or more starts range from a 5.37 to an 8.44 ERA.When the Pirates come to town, they’ll start the likes of Zach Duke(4.41 ERA), Paul Maholm(4.97 ERA), Ian Snell(5.94 ERA) and Tom Gorzelanny(7.22 ERA).The only real test will be from the Cubs, but if they don’t happen to face Carlos Zambrano or Ryan Dempster, they’ll see Jason Marquis(4.98 ERA) or Ted Lilly(5.54 ERA).There’s no place like home and by the end of June, the Chicago White Sox will have shown everyone exactly why that is true.

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