MySports Today

Wow, things have turned really ugly, really quickly for the Chicago White Sox.  The White Sox are 4 games under .500 at 64-68 and they trail the Detroit Tigers by 6 games in the AL Central.  The White Sox have lost 9 of 11 games, and still have 2 games left on a grueling 10-game road trip in the city where the White Sox find it so difficult to win – Minneapolis.  The White Sox have lost 6 of the 7 games that the 2 teams have played against each other at the Metrodome during the 2009 MLB schedule.

Things started to turn bad for the White Sox during the weekend of August 21st when the White Sox dropped 2 of 3 to the lowly Baltimore Orioles.  Then the White Sox embarked on the 10-game road trip where they quickly dropped 3 of 4 to the Red Sox at Fenway Park in Boston and all 3 games to the Yankees at the New Yankee Stadium in the Bronx.  The White Sox limped into Minneapolis where they looked like a defeated team – losing 4-1, the White Sox managed just 7 hits off of Nick Blackburn and 3 Twins relievers.

In the meantime, GM Kenny Williams pulled off 2 last minute trades to move older players who are no longer in the team’s long-term plans.  Williams moved DH Jim Thome to the Los Angeles Dodgers and Jose Contreras to the Colorado Rockies.  The Dodgers have a 5.5 games lead over the Rockies for the NL West division, and Rockies are tied with the San Francisco Giants for the NL Wild Card lead.

Thome is hitting .252 with 23 HR’s and 74 RBI’s on the season. The White Sox got infielder Justin Fuller in return.

Contreras struggled for the majority of the 2009 MLB schedule – 5-13 record, 5.42 ERA and 1.45 WHIP.  Contreras has lost 6 of his last 9 starts.  The Rockies sent the White Sox pitcher Brandon Hynick (26 starts at Triple-A with a 10-9 record and 3.83 ERA) in the trade.

Both Thome and Contreras beat the playoff-roster trading deadline, so the Dodgers and Rockies would be able to put each player on their playoff roster should they make the playoffs.

Is this is a sign that the White Sox are packing it in for 2009?  Maybe, maybe not.  Thome and Contreras have really not contributed lately, so this might give Manager Ozzie Guillen the chance to use some other guys who can help the White Sox get this thing turned around before it’s too late.  Guess we’ll have to wait and see what happens.

As we reported yesterday, Mark Buerhle threw the 18th perfect game in MLB history ni Thursday’s 5-0 win over the Tampa Bay Rays.  After we did some digging on the perfect game, we came up with a few interesting facts.

First, home plate umpire Eric Cooper was also behind the plate for Buerhle’s no-hitter at U.S. Cellular Field back in April 2004 when Buerhle no-hit the Texas Rangers.  Buerhle also faced just 27 batters in that game – Buerhle walked Sammy Sosa to end the perfect game but picked him off of 1st base to maintain the 27-batter minimum.  Pretty random.

Second, cather Ramon Castro caught Mark Buerhle for the 1st time ever in Thursday’s game.  Buerhle typically has his regular catcher A.J. Pierzynski behind the plate (as he did for his no-hitter back in 2004), but because the White Sox were set to play 4 games in 3 days against the 1st place Tigers over the weekend, Manager Ozzie Guillen wanted to give Pierzynski the day off so that he would be able to play each day over the weekend. Castro spoke with both Buerhle and Pierzynski before the game to go over the game plan, and surely benefited from the fact that Buerhle works quickly and rarely shakes off the catcher’s call during a game.  Pierzynski and Buerhle even joked around about Buerhle throwing a no-hitter or perfect game on Thursday, so good things come to those who wait I guess.

Congrats Mark – it couldn’t have happened to a better guy…

27 up, 27 down – Mark Buehrle entered the history books by throwing the 18th perfect game in Major League history.  It was the 1st perfect game thrown in the big leagues since the Diamondback’s Randy Johnson threw a perfect game against the Atlanta Braves back in 2004.  Manager Ozzie Guillen and outfielder DeWayne Wise get a big assist – Guillen inserted Wise into the game in the 9th inning in center field for defensive purposes.  The Rays gabe Kapler hit a bomb to left center field that Wise tracked down and knocked back into the playing field by leaping over the center field fence.  The ball almost popped out of Wise’s glove, but as he fell to the ground, he managed to scoop the ball up bear-handed and put it back in his glove to preserve the out.  Buerhle then struck out Michel Hernandez and got Jason Bartlett to ground out to shortstop to complete the 116-pitch perfect game.

Buerhle had this to say about Wise’s catch and the amazing feat – - “I was hoping it was staying in there, give him enough toom to catch it.  I know the guys were doing everything they could to save the no-hitter, the perfect game, whatever it might be… I don’t know if it’s really sunk in yet.  We have a short flight to Detroit.  I’m sure it will be a little hectic later.”

Buerhle faced the minimum 27 batters back in his April 2007 no-hitter against the Texas Rangers.  He picked off Sammy Sosa after walking him to negate the perfect game.  He became only the 2nd player to throw 2 no-hitters in a White Sox uniform – Frank Smith did so against Detroit in 1905 and against the Philadelphia Athletics in 1908.  Charles Robertson threw the White Sox’ only other perfect game back in 1922 against the Detroit Tigers.

President Barack Obama – a lifelong White Sox fan – called Buerhle after the win to offer his congratulations.  And while it probably doesn’t mean as much – congrats to you Mark from all of us here at MySportsToday.com!

We all kind of suspected it, but our suspicions were confirmed when the NY Times reported that Sammy Sosa was one of the players that tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs back in 2003.  The Yankees Alex Rodriguez is the only other player that has been linked to the 2003 positive PED test results.

Sosa went from a skinny outfielder to a muscular hunk of a ballplayer during the late 1990’s and early 2000’s.  Sosa is the only player in major league baseball history to hit 60 or more home runs in 3 different seasons.  While the release of Rodriguez’s name and Sosa’s name has raised other issues – the test results were to remain anonymous under an agreement between MLB and the players union – it is a shame to finally have confirmation that Sosa used PED’s to enhance his play on the field.  Sosa played for the Cubs from 1992-2004 and was the main draw for Cubs fans during that time.  He is the Cubs all-time home run leader with 545 home runs.

During the Cubs-White Sox cross-town classic this week at Wrigley Field, Cubs Manager Lou Pinella and White Sox Manager Ozzie Guillen both commented on the Sosa outing and the test results.

Pinella had this to say:  “It’s a shame that baseball keeps going back to the past.  Baseball is doing a good job today of cleaning up all these issues.  That’s what we should be focusing on.  I don’t know how this news gets out.  In my case, I wasn;’t here, and I wish that we would just focus on today and what the sport is doing as opposed to what happened in the past.”

Guillen had this to say:  “It’s very, very sad how names start to come out.  And every week baseball has to deal with these names.  And whoever is leaking the information, whoever got the rights to the information, they should right away say something and get it over with, because it’s put everyone in baseball, not just Chicago people, everyone in baseball, dealing with this situation they shouldn’t be dealing with any more.  We got enough time to clean this thing.”

Only 2 of the 103 players that tested positive during the 2003 testing have been identified.  At this point, if names are going to be leaked out 1 by 1, we should really just get it over with it and have all the names disclosed.  It’s ridiculous that all of the focus is on Sosa and Rodriguez because someone broke the law and violated the terms of the confidentiality of the testing.  The person leaking these names should be forced to disclose the source, so that the source can be properly punished for violating the terms of the testing.  We doubt this will ever happen, but until someone makes a fuss over this, we’ll continue to get information piecemeal over time.  Not good for baseball, for the players or for us, the fans.