White Sox offense looks anemic

Everything went right for the Chicago White Sox on opening day. Mark Buehrle put behind his late season slump and gave the Sox seven scoreless innings allowing only three hits while making the best defensive play in the early goings of this baseball season. Paul Konerko and Alex Rios connected for home runs and the bullpen looked solid in shutting the Cleveland Indians down in the 8th and 9th innings in a 6-0 victory.

Optimism was extremely high after opening day for White Sox fans. Then the next two games came and went, and the Sox found themselves at 1-2, losing their first home series of the year to last year’s worst team in the AL Central. The Indians came back and knocked off the White Sox 5-3 in both losses, the latter in 11 innings. The White Sox will now stay in Chicago for a three game set against their biggest rivals, the Minnesota Twins. So what went wrong on Wednesday and Thursday?

Well the weather was certainly a reverse of a beautiful opening day game, but the Sox’s woes began and ended with the offense. A balanced team that combines small ball, speed and power just has not produced. The White Sox have just 14 hits in three games, and Thursday’s game went 11 innings in a 5-3 loss. So the Sox have been up to bat in 28 innings and only have 14 hits to show for it. Only one player is batting over .250 and that’s Gordon Beckham at .273. Only four hitters are hitting above .167. Paul Konerko has two home runs and 5 RBI and Carlos Quentin has a home run and 3 RBI on the season. The rest of the team combined has 2 RBI.

I know it’s way too early in the season to get into statistics, but the Sox vast hitting ineptitude has to at least be brought into the conversation. All spring training, the talk was about the starting rotation; If the offense picks up the slack, watch out for this White Sox team. The three starting pitchers, Buehrle, Jake Peavy and Gavin Floyd have pitched well enough, throwing 18 innings and only allowing five earned runs for a 2.50 ERA. But the offense needs to produce runs if this team is serious about winning the AL Central.

Newcomer third baseman Mark Teahen is yet to get a hit in three games and has looked terrible in the process. After watching Teahen fan at two breaking balls way out of the strike zone last night, my expectations for him this year immediately dropped. He was great on the Royals hitting against the White Sox, but that has not transitioned in a White Sox uniform following up a poor spring training as well. He does have four walks though. Andruw Jones and Mark Kotsay have combined to go hitless and Alexei Ramirez and Alex Rios only have one hit apiece through three games.

While the White Sox are only batting .154 as a team, last in the American League, they do have a high on-base percentage. They have already drawn 19 walks, but haven’t done much with those runners. The Sox were 2-11 with runners in scoring position last night. The lack of hitting could be contributed to the wild pitchers they are facing. They may face another one tonight in Minnesota’s Francisco Liriano, but should have plenty of chances to pick up hits against Scott Baker and Nick Blackburn over the weekend, who do not want to walk batters.

The bullpen has showed some promise with Matt Thornton having a blistering start, striking out six batters in three innings while reaching 97 mph on the radar. However, Thornton gave up the game-tying double in the bottom of the 8th last night that eventually led to a White Sox defeat. Bobby Jenks looks like he is going to have to work for every out with his velocity down. J.J. Putz took the loss the last night in two innings of work, but threw well on opening day. Sergio Santos is a flamethrowing rookie that could really make a difference. He got the Sox out of a tight spot last night in the seventh inning, allowing no baserunners after he replaced Gavin Floyd.

The bullpen has given up five runs in 11 innings so far and I don’t have a real gripe with any of the pitchers. It’s extremely difficult to evaluate pitchers after only three games. Time will tell how this bullpen holds up.

The White Sox will trot out John Danks, Freddy Garcia and Mark Buehrle against the Twins this weekend. The offense need to pick it up and take at least two of three games to end the first week on a high note.

I still think the White Sox are going to win the AL Central with about 90 wins, but my tone might change in the coming weeks if this offense continues its pathetic output.