South Side Sox

Piecing together Kevin Hickey's legacy

2012-05-17T09:00:12Z

Kevin Hickey, South Side native, former White Sox LOOGY and batting practice pitcher, lived an one-in-a-million life. That storybook closed after Hickey passed away on Wednesday, following weeks spent in a diabetic coma.

After news of his death spread, lots of stories followed. Some quotes from the above video are in Chuck Garfien's piece about Hickey, and there have been a number of other nice tributes that help fill out Hickey's life and legacy in the White Sox organization.

Kevin Hickey, a long shot who fulfilled a neighborhood dream, dies at 56 - Chicago Sun-Times

Mark Konkol had talked to Hickey several times leading up to his coma, and the resulting article is a wonderful obituary. This is the setup:

Maybe you’ve heard about Hickey. He’s the street tough from Brighton Park, the stud at 16-inch softball who got laid off at Ryerson Steel and got signed by the White Sox, his favorite team, after throwing just few dozen fastballs at a open tryout at Old Comiskey Park.

And after a long, arduous journey — shoulder injuries, five years in the minors, a big league resurrection with the Orioles, more injuries, retirement, a movie role alongside Charlie Sheen, divorce, poverty, diabetes and eight long years selling used cars — Hickey made it back to the White Sox bench as a batting practice pitcher who was beloved by players.

Read the whole thing now. It's essential, and it's ultimately uplifting -- especially the part about the playoff share, which allowed him to purchase a glucose pump.

Farmer relished time with ex-Sox teammate Hickey - chicagotribune.com

Ed Farmer allowed the inherited runs that led to Hickey's first major-league loss. How Hickey found out is one of the stories Farmer tells.

Late Hickey remembered fondly on South Side | whitesox.com: News

Mark Salas talks about Hickey's thorough nature, which helped when it came to making sure everybody had enough pitches to hit. Not so much when it came to quick rounds of golf.

And a few assorted tweets:

Sad to hear news this am of Kevin Hickey's passing. A true loss to @whitesox family. Great man who made it fun to come to the park & work.
— Mark Teahen (@ESPY_TEAHEN) May 16, 2012

May Kevin Hickey rest in peace.He will be missed. Brought passion and energy to our clubhouse everyday. Praying for his family. @whitesox
— Philip Humber (@Philip_Humber) May 16, 2012

I am sadden by the passing of one of my favorites Kevin Hickey. He was such a motivator and encourager. I'll miss him dearly.
— Brent Lillibridge (@BSLillibridge) May 16, 2012

Sad to see a good man pass away today, Kevin Hickey....very good baseball man and GREAT person.Hick will be missed.
— Jon Adkins (@jonadkinsWV) May 17, 2012

I'm certain that Hickey held future HOF George Brett hitless in every career plate appearance (0/15?) - LaRussa matched them up constantly.
— Dan Evans (@DanEvans108) May 16, 2012

We lost a great guy in Kevin Hickey of the @whitesox. Great man to be around and was always around if u needed some BP. #RIP Buddy
— Jermaine dye (@JermaineDye) May 16, 2012

Very saddened to hear that Kevin Hickey passed away. A great man who I had the pleasure of knowing during my White Sox days.
— Adam Russell (@AdamRussell36) May 16, 2012

no to manny people make this game fun the hick. man. was tha man
— Ozzie Guillen (@OzzieGuillen) May 16, 2012

Angels 7, White Sox 2: Floyd can't finish

2012-05-17T04:55:12Z

After Jake Peavy's first bad start of the season, it was time for Gavin Floyd to regress to the mean. Unlike Peavy, he didn't lose a large lead. Instead, he lost a small lead, and then lost a lot of battles that turned into a large deficit.

The Sox gave Floyd a 2-1 lead in the third inning, and Floyd blew it over the course of three batters. He got ahead 0-2 on Mike Trout, who singled. Alberto Callaspo singled him to third. And after a first-pitch strike to Albert Pujols, he hung a slider that Pujols sent over the center field wall, giving Pujols his second homer of the year and an Angels a 4-2 lead.

Floyd let the Angels off the hook all night. He threw 67 of 97 pitches for strikes, and walked only one batter over his six innings. He also threw first-pitch strikes to 21 of 27 batters, which is great.

The problem was, some of those strikes were very hittable ones while ahead in the count (per 3E8, he allowed seven of his 10 hits with two strikes). Sometimes he couldn't get to two strikes. Vernon Wells, also struggling, sealed the deal in the sixth inning with a two-run homer on a first-pitch fastball. So while the Angels snapped out of their funk in their first game with a new hitting coach, Floyd helped them out with some poorly timed pitches. Then again, the Angels have to hit those mistakes.

The White Sox offense couldn't string together hits in the same way against Angels starter Jerome Williams. There were individual bright spots -- Dayan Viciedo hit a solo shot, part of a three-hit day. Paul Konerko also racked up three hits, all singles with a variety of swings. Gordon Beckham delivered a big two-out double that scored Alejandro De Aza from first and gave the Sox the briefest of leads.

But any momentum was stunted by holes in the lineup elsewhere. Adam Dunn, Alex Rios, Alexei Ramirez and Brent Morel all wore the collar. Morel looked especially lost, grounding into a double play and striking out twice. He ended the game with a backwards K.

Bullet points:

Viciedo also racked up an outfield assist for the second straight game, gunning down Mike Trout at second.
A.J. Pierzynski threw out Howie Kendrick at second (he looked safe).
Jesse Crain, pitching for the first time in nearly a month, threw a scoreless inning and picked off Trout.
Peter Bourjos tried a rough-and-tumble takeout slide on Gordon Beckham in the eighth. Literally -- he slide into the bag, tumbled over it and tried rolling over Beckham's leg. Beckham completed the double play.

Record: 17-21 | Box score | Play-by-play

Gamethread: Hi, Anaheim

2012-05-17T01:45:07Z

Current Series

2 game series vs Angels @ Angel Stadium of Anaheim

Chicago White Sox South Side Sox @ Los Angeles Angels Halos Heaven Wednesday, May 16, 2012, 9:05 PM CDT Angel Stadium of Anaheim Gavin Floyd vs Jerome Williams Clear. Winds blowing out to left field at 5-10 m.p.h. Game time temperature around 75. Complete Coverage >
Thu 05/17		2:35 PM CDT

Carmelita: a Los Angeles Angels Preview

2012-05-16T18:44:30Z

A brief look at an opponent we play in a very confusingly timed series.

Offense: Mike Trout-CF, Alberto Callaspo-3B, Albert Pujols-1B, Kendrys Morales-DH, Mark Trumbo-RF, Howie Kendrick-2B, Vernon Wells-LF, Erick Aybar-SS, Bobby Wilson-C. Bench: Maicer Izturis-INF, Peter Bourjos-OF, John Hester-C.

LAA R/G: 3.62. CHW R/G: 4.05.

In case you hadn't heard, the Angels finally got around to cutting one of their endless supply of veteran outfielders to call up Bryce Harper's competition for the title of "Young Outfield God of All He Surveys", or Mike Trout as the MSM like to call him. The only problem is that they cut the wrong guy. Sorry Bobby Abreu, but the Angels don't like to make sense. But back to Trout. He's faster than lightning, which makes playing center field quite a bit easier. His current homerun ceiling is around twenty homeruns, but that should go up seeing as he's currently too young to buy alcohol. If not for Albert Pujols, Trout would easily be the new face of the franchise. And then we have Alberto Callaspo. Alberto is the type of player the casual fan might not care much for and would call for to be replaced, which would be silly. Is he a world-beater? Nope. But he's a league-average bat that plays good defense at a key position. His plate discipline is a bit off so far this season, but should fix itself shortly.

So yeah, Albert Pujols is currently the worst position player on the Angels when it comes to fWAR. It's way too early to declare anything, but if I had to bet on this being the end of his career or some bizarre Adam Dunn's 2011 season kind of thing I would bet the house on the latter. Yes, his batting numbers had been on a slight decline from 2009 to 2010 with a bit more of a dropoff in 2011, but there's no logical reason for this free fall (I was very tempted to use Tom Petty's "Free Fallin" as the post title). I do find it hilarious that his updated ZiPS projections still has him hitting 26 homeruns though. We're about a quarter of the way through the season and he has one. Strange days, indeed. Kendrys Morales is finally back from his leg exploding in 2010. So far he's looked like the exact same player, just with a bit less power. I find that pretty impressive seeing as he essentially took two years off. It's going to be interesting seeing just how much Mike Scioscia plays him.

Mark Trumbo is playing in right field, as Torii Hunter is dealing with some family issues right now. You might remember Trumbo as the guy who somehow hit 29 homeruns last year and managed an OBP under .300. Well, he already has six homeruns and thanks to a .381 BABIP an OBP of .392. He'll likely go back to DHing when Hunter returns, along with filling in on the corners occasionally. Howie Kendrick established himself as one of the better second basemen in the AL last season, playing stellar defense to go with his .349 wOBA. He does not draw walks very often (4.2% career BB%), but should finish the season with homerun and stolen base totals in the mid-teens.

Vernon Wells is bad. He's more or less abandoned every part of his game except trying to hit homeruns, which is kind of working. I mean, yeah, he has five homeruns. But his wOBA is sitting at .296 and isn't likely to get too much higher. He can only play in the corners now, but realistically the Angels just need to cut him. If you have to pay him either way, you might as well pay him to not block either Trout or Peter Bourjos, who are both far better fielders and have more offensive upside than this shell of Vernon Wells. Erick Aybar reminds me a lot of Callaspo. Not that they're similar players, but that they're both kind of there. Neither will hurt the team, but neither is anything close to an All-Star. Aybar stole 30 bases last season, though he's going to need his BABIP to regress back to normal if he expects to even pass twenty this year. He'll hit a handful of homeruns and play good but not great defense. Chris Ianetta got hurt, so something named Bobby Wilson is now playing catcher and batting ninth. Wilson appears to be the Chris Stewart (remember him?) of Anaheim, having been shuttled between LAA's minor league affiliates and riding the end of the bench while in the majors. Wilson has never managed to be a threat with his bat and is sub-par at throwing out runners.

Pitching: Jered Weaver-RHP, Dan Haren-RHP, Ervin Santana-RHP, C.J. Wilson-LHP, Jerome Williams-RHP, Scott Downs-CL.

LAA R/G: 4.00. CHW R/G: 4.08.

One through four, that is one of the sexiest rotations in baseball. Hell, it's not even bad at five. Jered Weaver is on pace to have the best season of his career. He's striking out 4.9 hitters for every one that he walks. He's thrown two complete games (one a no-hitter) and only given up three homeruns in 54 innings. Yeah, he's kind of killing it right now. Thanfully, we miss him on this weird two game road trip. He's been relying heavily on his sinker this year, throwing it 40% of the time. Weaver also throws a four-seamer in the low-90s, a slider, a changeup, and a curveball. Dan Haren (whom we also miss) is looking almost John Danksian in his inability to win (1-4 on the season). He's been a bit unlucky with BABIP and walking a few more hitters than usual, but I think both of those things will correct themselves soon enough. Haren will still finish closer to 200 strikeouts than 150 and should give LAA another starter who will easily pass 200 IP. His main pitch is a cutter, but he also mixes in a sinker, a four-seam fastball in the low-90s, a splitter, a curveball, and a changeup.

Ervin Santana has been the unexpected weak link in the rotation thus far, which is weird considering he's only sporting a .240 BABIP against him. But when you remember that homeruns aren't counted towards BABIP and you see that he's already somehow given up as many as Adam Dunn has hit (12 for the lazy or ill-informed), things start to make a lot more sense. Other than what you almost have to believe is unsustainable bad luck in giving up homeruns, Ervin's peripherals are pretty much right in line with his career averages. 87% of his pitches are either a mid-90s four-seamer or a biting slider. The other 13% is a mixture of changeups and sinkers. C.J. Wilson is working out much better than Los Angeles' other highly priced addition has been so far, which is encouraging news for Angels' fans at least. I'm still amazed he managed to have an ERA under three last season pitching for the Texas Rangers, depressed run scoring environment and all. Wilson will strikeout more hitters than Haren, but will also walk more as well. He should also be able to give LAA their fourth starter over 200 innings on the year, which is very impressive. He's been most reliant on a sinker and a four-seam fastball in the low-90s thus far this year. He's also been using a cutter, a curveball, a slider, and a changeup.

Jerome Williams was drafted in 1999. Before last season, he hadn't pitched in the majors since 2007. He has never pitched more than 131 innings in any season during his career. They can ride him as long as he lasts, as he won't likely be any worse than league average and the bullpen should be well-rested thanks to the other four starters. Jerome throws a low-90s four-seamer, a cutter, a changeup, and a curveball. Scott Downs became the closer when Jordan Walden was demoted. He's been in the majors since 2000, which blows my mind as well. He pitched for the Expos, meaning I love him. Downs does not get strikeouts, opting to keep the ball on the ground using a heavy sinker and a curveball.

Outlook: Despite coming into the season as World Series contenders, the Angels have stumbled out of the gate and haven't yet stopped losing ground to the Rangers. 4-4 season series split.

All apologies for the lack of links and humor.

When Robin Ventura's slow hook meets the mean

2012-05-16T11:00:38Z

As painful as it was to witness, Jake Peavy was due for a bad start. We all knew he's not a sub-2.00 ERA pitcher, and his extreme flyballing tendencies, a power-hitting lineup and a lively park teamed up on Tuesday to put him in his place.

His place is still a nice place. He's 4-1 with a 2.65 ERA, and he's averaging better than five strikeouts per walk.

But now that Peavy gave up ground in the race for the hypothetical Cy Young Award If The Season Ended Today, it allows Gavin Floyd to grab some of the spotlight ... provided he can put out the fire from Peavy's five-and-dive bomb, of course.

Floyd is now the staff leader in ERA at 2.53, and he's snuck up on everybody after an unremarkable first three starts. But he's made up considerable ground over his last four starts by allowing four runs combined, and the other peripherals are handsome, too:

Innings pitched: 28.2
Hits: 17
Walks: 5
Strikeouts: 26
Home runs: 0
Opponents hitting: .165/.204/.194

Floyd is due for some regression himself, and that could happen against the Angels tonight. But we may as well highlight those numbers while they're there, and also use them to point out something else that's new, noteworthy, and has future implications: Robin Ventura rides Floyd hard.

Floyd has thrown an average of 114 pitches over his last five starts. He threw 117 pitches against Baltimore on April 19, which tied the fourth-highest total of his career. His next time out, he used 119 against Oakland, and that start took sole possession of third place in the same category.

So he's running unusually high pitch counts more frequently than ever before, and earlier, too. Entering this season, Floyd had exceeded 110 pitches 14 times, and only once before Mother's Day.

He's already done it four times this year. And they have required every square inch of his BHB, because he's received little support (three runs a game) and he's facing respectable lineups. He's more than proved his toughness to Ventura over the brief time they've known each other.

That said, it would be a good time to scale back -- but not just because of pitch count itself, or the injury risk it supposedly represents. It's all about general effectiveness.

Referring back to the numbers above, Floyd has allowed 17 hits over his last four starts. But six of those hits have come in the last inning he started. And in three of those starts, he didn't finish the inning he began.

That's no knock on Floyd. It's natural, because pitchers always fare worse when they're 1) fatigued, and 2) going through a lineup for the fourth time. As well as Floyd has pitched, he's not impervious to either fate.

Here's how his season breaks down by pitch count:

Split	PA	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	BB	SO	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS	BAbip
Pitch 1-25	40	37	3	8	1	0	1	2	7	.216	.275	.324	.599	.241
Pitch 26-50	47	41	2	7	0	0	0	4	13	.171	.261	.171	.432	.250
Pitch 51-75	39	35	2	3	1	0	1	3	9	.086	.179	.200	.379	.080
Pitch 76-100	40	36	5	8	2	1	2	2	8	.222	.275	.500	.775	.222
Pitch 101+	17	15	1	5	1	0	0	2	5	.333	.412	.400	.812	.500

And then by innings:

Split	ERA	PA	AB	H	2B	3B	HR	BB	SO	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS	BAbip
Innings 1-3	2.14	81	73	13	1	0	1	6	19	.178	.259	.233	.492	.226
Innings 4-6	2.61	78	69	11	2	1	3	5	16	.159	.234	.348	.582	.157
Innings 7-9	3.86	24	22	7	2	0	0	2	7	.318	.375	.409	.784	.467

Of course, these numbers include his unremarkable first three starts. I can't drill down as precisely with B-Ref for chunks of seasons, but BaseballMusings.com's database at least allows me to break down his last four stars by groups of innings. The result is the same, just more distinct:

Split	AB	H	2B	BB	SO	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS
Innings 1-3	43	7	0	2	11	.162	.200	.162	.362
Innings 4-6	38	3	1	1	8	.079	.103	.105	.208
Innings 7-9	22	7	2	2	7	.318	.375	.409	.784

Even though Floyd is damn near unhittable for the first two-thirds of the game, the remainder is a different animal for just about every pitcher over a whole season.

Oddly enough, Peavy was the one true exception to the rule in the White Sox rotation prior to his start on Tuesday. But we may as well clip and save these numbers now, because they're going to change after his latest line is thrown into the mix:

Split	PA	AB	H	2B	3B	HR	BB	SO	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS	BAbip
1st PA in G, as SP	63	60	12	3	0	0	2	20	.200	.222	.250	.472	.293
2nd PA in G, as SP	63	59	12	2	1	1	2	18	.203	.238	.322	.560	.268
3rd PA in G, as SP	56	53	9	3	0	1	3	4	.170	.214	.283	.497	.167
4th+ PA in G, as SP	13	13	2	0	0	0	0	2	.154	.154	.154	.308	.182

In terms of results, Peavy had made a mockery of the 75-pitch barrier that whupped him last season. But then you see the massive drop-off in strikeouts and BABIP, and one of those abnormalities had to give. Unfortunately, it's the BABIP (and the triple-slash numbers with it).

Ventura has shown a slow hook so far, and that's not necessarily a bad thing. Certain situations call for it, especially if the good relievers need a break. However, it often seems like he's slow to even get the bullpen stirring as the starter approaches or crosses any of the above thresholds, which leads to situations like Will Ohman facing three righties in a close game. That's a failure in planning for any inning before the 14th.

It hasn't hurt Ventura on a regular basis, but as Peavy can tell you, baseball can correct the outliers in a hurry. Floyd sidestepped a similar correction for some of his stats when Matt Thornton left the bases loaded in the eighth his last time out. And regardless of who's hot in April and May, as the weather warms up and pitchers enter the dog days, tired starter arms are going to be a dicier proposition.

We'll see how Jesse Crain affects Ventura's managing. Theoretically, having three late-inning arms at his disposal should give Ventura more confidence to go to the bullpen in the seventh, and it should also take some stress off Thornton. But this is all uncharted territory. All we can do is anticipate, and hope Ventura is anticipating better than we are.

Tigers 10, White Sox 8: Detroit barrage too much

2012-05-15T22:03:45Z

The game started well enough for the White Sox. While Peavy had trouble with his command in the first inning, Alexei Ramirez and Gene Lamont helped to bail him out. A leadoff walk was erased by a generous double play turned by Peavy and Ramirez. After a Miguel Cabrera single, Prince Fielder doubled down the left field line. For some reason, Lamont decided to send Cabrera even though the relay had almost reached Ramirez by the time Cabrera made his turn home. The Cuban's arm is not one to test and he threw out Cabrera easily.

In the bottom half of the inning, Lamont was shown what good third base coaching looked like. With the bases loaded, A.J. Pierzynski hit a shallow single to left off of a shaky Max Scherzer. Alejandro De Aza scored easily and, after Don Kelly bobbled the ball, Joe McEwing sent Gordon Beckham. Kelly then bobbled the ball again and Beckham scored without a throw.

Peavy settled in after the first inning but Scherzer did not. The Tigers righty labored - and I mean excruciatingly, slowly labored - through four plus innings. Scherzer didn't have his good mechanics and he responded like a Yankees or Red Sox pitcher and decided to slow the pace to a near halt. It didn't help.

The White Sox added a Paul Konerko solo home run and a Dayan Viciedo RBI single in the 3rd. With his pitch count approaching 100, Scherzer couldn't retire either of the batters he faced in the fifth. Collin Balester relieved Scherzer. His first pitch to Pierzynksi was a wild pitch that advanced Adam Dunn to second and Konerko to third. His second pitch was a single to center that scored both runners. With Peavy cruising and a 6-0 lead, White Sox fans felt pretty good. And then the wheels fell off.

Andy Dirks led off the top of the sixth with a single. Cabrera then sent a ball into the left field stands that almost reached the concourse. Fielder blooped a ball near the line in short left field and decided to go for two. Viciedo would have had him at second but couldn't find the grip on the ball. Peavy retired Avila but then hit Brian Boesch with a pitch. Ryan Raburn followed by taking a hanging slider into the outfield seats. Just like that it was a 6-5 game. And the Tigers weren't finished.

Peavy was pulled after walking Jhonny Peralta. Will Ohman paradoxically came in. Presumably Robin Ventura was looking for the lefty-lefty matchup with Kelly, which is sort of pointless considering Kelly can't hit anyone. Jim Leyland countered with the obvious move and pinch hit with Delmon Young. Ohman responded by hitting Young with a pitch. Then the right-handed Austin Jackson hit another 3-run home run.

The Tigers piled on a couple more runs in the seventh to make it 10-6 and it was good that they did. After Jose Valverde retired the first two batters in the ninth, the White Sox loaded the bases via a Konerko walk, a Pierzynski double and a Rios walk. During Rios' plate appearance, Octavio Dotel came in to relieve an injured Valverde. Ramirez then doubled home Konerko and Pierzynski but Dotel ended the threat when Viciedo hit a ball deep to the right field fence. But not deep enough.

Bullet points:

Pierzynski was 5-5 with a double and 3 RBI.
Konerko was 3-4 with a home run and a walk.
The White Sox failed to contain Cabrera and Fielder, which is a recipe for giving up 10 runs. Cabrera went 2-5 with a home run and Fielder went 3-4 with two doubles, a walk and a hit-by-pitch.
The game lasted 3:42.

Record: 17-20 | Box score | Play-by-play

Hector Santiago is surviving, but in need of seasoning

2012-05-15T10:00:27Z

Jesse Crain will be back on the 25-man roster at some point this week. Original speculation called Monday the day, but given that he was coming off an oblique strain and had thrown twice in three days, the Sox probably didn't think there was much point bringing him back when they wouldn't want him to pitch.

With Chris Sale back in the rotation, all signs point to Eric Stults as the most expendable Sox pitcher. If he's not asked to throw six innings, then he's just a guy.

But if the Sox were less interested in shifting organizational players and more interested in who would get the most out of a demotion, it certainly seems like Hector Santiago could use some further refinement.

Out of the 20 pitches Santiago threw in his scary scoreless inning on Monday, 19 were fastballs. The other pitch was a slider, and when you look at his release point and pitch plot, it neither started nor ended well.

Still, Santiago showed more diversity with his pitch selection compared to his previous outing against Kansas City, when all 12 pitches were fastballs. In his current form, he's ditched his supposed bread-and-butter pitch (the screwball) entirely, and he flashes the sweeping slider once every three batters or so. His inability to get ahead of hitters certainly hampers his confidence in getting creative.

As 3E8 put it in the gamethread, "Santiago is a pitching machine set to top speed that could use calibration." Somehow, he's strung together three scoreless outings despite the lack of variety, which is a testament to something -- the power of above-average heat from the left side, some semblance of resiliency, or just randomness.

In any case, it seems shortsighted to hope Santiago can get by riding a fastball for an inning. At least on this team, because they don't score enough (or give up enough runs) to create a lot of low-leverage learning environments. Robin Ventura isn't saving him for garbage time, either. In his 13 appearances, only once has Santiago entered a game with the Sox trailing. The margin? One run.

So game to game, the stakes are pretty high. Then add the fact that he's also pitching for his big-league life, and it creates an environment that isn't conducive to working on a pitch. It's really easy to slip into survival mode when one or two bad games could mean a ticket back to Charlotte.

But if Santiago can't find situations to throw other pitches, then Charlotte may be what's best for him. He's only 24, and he's never pitched at Triple-A. Plus, he's far more versatile than he's shown -- he has a breaking ball for both righties and lefties, and the Sox could justify stretching him out for the rotation, too.

This is all hypothetical at this point. A demotion is far from imminent given the faith Ventura has shown in him. Plus, Crain's return should help him out, because it'll knock him down a peg (in the good way), and perhaps free him up for some mop-up duty, which would allow him to use all his pitches when he'd want to throw them. It's similar to using an abandoned building for fire simulations -- worst-case scenario, an unusable structure just looks more like rubble, but maybe he'll come out of the mess knowing how to better use his tools when it actually matters.

One more pitching note

During Philip Humber's disaster two starts ago, his lack of swing-and-miss stuff was a popular talking point among media types on Twitter. Rightfully so, since he only got two whiffs out of 62 pitches.

Nobody must have floated the number out there on Monday, because John Danks' pitch data is even more troublesome in this regard. He threw 80 pitches, with one swinging strike to show for it. It's worth a deeper look when his season stats are updated with Monday's ... offerings .. but his lack of swinging strikes is a good place to start.

It's affecting the big picture in a big way. Throw out Opening Day, and over his last seven starts (41 1/3 innings), Danks has walked more batters (22) than he's struck out (20).

Worse yet, he seems to be getting further away from his old form with every start. His May peripherals are frightening -- 17 innings, seven walks, two strikeouts. He's not fooling anybody on any level.

White Sox 7, Tigers 5: An unusual amount of resolve at home

2012-05-15T03:36:26Z

The Tigers forced John Danks out of the ballgame two batters into the third inning. Trailing 5-2 against left-handed Drew Smyly at U.S. Cellular Field seemed like too much for the White Sox to overcome.

But the White Sox didn't count themselves out, and thanks to some timely hits with guys on base -- and a 2-0 home run advantage -- they have their most impressive victory of the season.

Zach Stewart picked up the victory in relief, and it's a relief win with teeth. He stranded the two runners he inherited from Danks and threw three scoreless innings for himself, giving the Sox bats enough time to seize control of the game.

Dayan Viciedo started the comeback with a two-run Tank blast to left in the fifth to make it a one-run game. Jim Leyland lifted Smyly in the sixth for Luke Putkonen, and the Sox "put" three more runs on the board (ha) with quite the sustained rally.

With one out, Alex Rios drilled a single back through the middle. Rios them teamed up with Pierzynski for a beautiful hit-and-run to put Sox on the corners, and a four-pitch walk to Alexei Ramirez loaded the bases for Viciedo. Viciedo bounced a single through the middle to drive in two more, and Brent Morel hung with a hanger and lined it over the head of a leaping Jhonny Peralta to make it a 7-5 game.

The Sox bullpen held firm for the rest of the game, although not without drama. Hector Santiago pitched a scoreless seventh despite only throwing a fastball, and despite falling behind 2-0 or worse to three batters (including one four-pitch walk). Matt Thornton endured some of his trademark misfortune by breaking Cabrera's bat for a bloop single, but he got Prince Fielder to bounce into a 6-4-3 double play.

Likewise, Addison Reed pitched around a one-out baserunner of his own, getting away with a hanger to Brennan Boesch for a flyout, then inducing a bouncer to first off the bat of Alex Avila. Paul Konerko made a nifty backhand pick, then tossed a fadeaway feed to Reed to end the game.

The comeback took Danks off the hook, and he was asking for a loss. After retiring Austin Jackson to start the game, he walked Andy Dirks on four pitches, right ahead of Miguel Cabrera and Prince Fielder. Cabrera singled back up the middle, and Fielder hit a scorcher of a double over the head of Alejandro De Aza, who broke laterally before realizing he had to go back. That drove in two runs, and Delmon Young followed with a double to the base of the wall in right center, making it 3-0.

Adam Dunn hit his 12th homer of the season to give Danks two runs in the bottom of the first, and Danks almost gave them right back. Third-base umpire Gerry Davis bailed him out. With runners on first and second and two outs, Cabrera hit a shot down the line that spun Davis around. He lost track of the ball, and didn't notice the ball cross over the inside of the bag and land on the chalk behind it. That probably cost the Tigers two runs, as Cabrera hit a flyout to left to end the threat.

They'd get those two runs back in the third. The inning started with single, single, and, after Danks fielded a bunt for a fielder's choice at third, another single to load the bases. Danks walked in a run, and a sac fly restored the Detroit lead to three.Two leadoff singles later, Danks' day was done. But thanks to the effort of his teammates, he'll live to tell about it.

Bullet points:

The Tigers were just 3-for-17 with runners in scoring position, and they left 13 on base. The White Sox: 2-for-6, and five.
Dunn's homer off Smyly was his first off a left-handed pitcher since he took Clayton Kershaw deep twice on Aug. 6, 2010.
The homer was just Dunn's fourth hit off a lefty in 34 at-bats. It drove in De Aza, whose leadoff single was just his fourth hit off a lefty in 32 at-bats.
It was a great night for the Cuban Connection. Viciedo drove in a career-high four runs, and Ramirez singled twice, walked once and stole a base.
Cabrera stole third on Pierzynski, but it was a Lance Johnson Jump off Zach Stewart's negligence and Pierzynski had no shot.

Record: 17-19 | Box score | Play-by-play