Mike Bauman's Article

[White Sox Josh]

Linky

South Siders continue heading South

08/20/2005 7:16 PM ET

By Mike Bauman

 

CHICAGO -- The Chicago White Sox lost their seventh straight game Saturday. And yet, they improved their chances to recover from this woeful stretch.

 

Why? Because they came out of denial and got back in touch with reality.

 

Even Ozzie Guillen, the manager, lead optimist and enthusiast for this operation, could no longer put a happy face on the way things were going. So he went off in the opposite direction.

 

"We just stink at the plate," Guillen said Saturday, describing his team's work in a 5-0 loss to the New York Yankees.

 

"I didn't come here to criticize my players, but it gets to the point where you get sick to your stomach watching this. Terrible at-bats, and when you do that, you're going to lose. What I see is, you shake your head and you can't believe how many outs we are giving away."

 

Further, Guillen suggested that even some of the Sox defensive play was "embarrassing" to observe. This is a long, long way from the usual happy patter, that this whole recent skid was just an inevitable bad patch for the team with the American League's best record.

 

"Yeah, it is embarrassing," catcher A.J. Pierzynski said. "Seems like we're sort of going through the motions and it's really sad. We put in so much work to get where we could be, should be."

 

All of this, as angry and disappointed as it sounded, was a good thing. It represented recognition of the problem, the typical first step on the road to recovery.

 

The White Sox were baseball's best team through the first four-plus months of the season. But the last seven games they were much more Illinois' answer to the Kansas City Royals.

 

The local debate in recent days was whether this was merely a brief and almost predictable slump or the beginning of a stunning, horrifying, heart-breaking, gut-wrenching, epic, colossal collapse.

 

Yes, there was a bit of ground between those two explanations. But there was enormous distance between the way the Sox had played earlier in the season and the surrenders they had been producing recently.

 

On the plus side, the Sox still have what is by any definition a large lead in the American League Central. It was nine games as they departed U.S. Cellular Field after the latest loss. But when you consider that it was 15 games on Aug. 1, the trend isn't particularly encouraging.

 

The basic problem is that the Sox are not scoring runs. In their last 52 innings, they have scored eight runs. There are some excuses in place. Their leadoff hitter and offensive catalyst, Scott Podsednik, is on the disabled list. And for the last two games, their primary slugger, Paul Konerko, has been out with a back strain.

 

Both of these absences hurt. But the White Sox are also not executing their small ball approach. Twice Saturday, they failed to move runners with sacrifice bunt attempts. And once, with runners on first and second, no outs, trailing by a run, they opted for a hit-and-run instead of a bunt and wound up hitting a soft liner into a double play.

 

And when they were going well, they were catching the ball with the best of them. This has been a major area of improvement for the White sox.

 

"This is the best defense we've seen them have," said Minnesota Twins manager Ron Gardenhire said.

 

But Saturday, when it mattered most, the defense didn't work. With no score, two on and no outs in the fourth, a tailor-made grounder was hit back to Orlando Hernandez on the mound. This is a man who had not made an error since August 1999. His throw to second base was a bit to the shortstop side of the bag, but it didn't much matter since nobody was in a position to catch it, anyway. El Duque was charged his first error in six years, but this error was sort of a team effort.

 

The Yankees then scored twice. And the way the White Sox were not hitting, the afternoon's drama was at an end. Many in the crowd of 38,938 at U.S. Cellular Field left early. Many stayed on to periodically boo the team with the American League's best record.

 

The big change was postgame, when Guillen dropped the approach he had in recent days, which was that this little slump was almost inevitable and was certainly temporary. Just a few hours before commenting that his team was making him sick to his stomach, Guillen had been talking about the need to keep up his players' confidence. He was right on both occasions, but the distance was remarkable.

 

"I talk to them every day," Guillen said. "That's my job. That's really what my job is. I tell them, 'Play the game hard, play the game you know how to play. We won before and we'll win later.'

 

"It's a natural thing for an athlete, any athlete, when things aren't going your way, the tendency is to panic and doubt yourself. It's my job, and my coaching staff's job, to push them to believe in themselves and know that they're good enough to do this.

 

"I would rather be going through this right now than in September," the manager added. "We will come out of this."

 

It became apparent later that Guillen would rather not go through this at all. The White Sox were good enough to go 74-39. You don't get to 74-39 by being anything less than very good.

 

But when 74-39 becomes 74-46, there can be cause for concern. In fact, there should be cause for concern. Saturday, Ozzie Guillen and his guys took the first step toward getting better by admitting that they had a problem.

 

This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.

[knightni]

I'm glad that Ozzie finally is admitting it.

 

Maybe he will realize that changes are needed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nah. :banghead

[Ozzie Montana]

Im glad Ozzie's state of denial is over but it shoudnt have taken him 7 straight loses to fess up.

[Iguana]

I am of the opinion that KW need to offer what ever he needs to get Griffey.

[Tannerfan]

I am of the opinion that KW need to offer what ever he needs to get Griffey.

 

Forget about Griffey, Griffey ain't coming. We are on our own, and it dosen't look good. The fade has begun.

[Steve9347]

Griffey is not on his way. Get Timo out of the starting lineup.

 

My suggestion is to re-vamp the lineup... THERE IS NO REASON TO CONTINUE BATTING TIMO LEADOFF...

 

I think this lineup would get things a-rolling.

 

Iguchi

Rowand

Everett

Konerko

Pierzynski

Dye

Crede

Uribe

Anderson

 

 

Jeez.... Dye/Crede/Uribe... pop-up row.