Being A White Sox Fan Is The Toughest Job On Earth

This past weekend, I made my way to Boston to take in both my favorite east coast city and my favorite stadium in baseball for a 3 game set between the White Sox and Red Sox. I absolutely love that stadium. It truly is a magical place. Sure, the White Sox beat the shit out of the Red Sox 3 straight games and that added to my happiness for the weekend, but Boston and Fenway are both the shit, plain and simple. It pains me to say it, but it's the truth. I love both and will be out for the White Sox series on a yearly basis moving forward. 

And needless to say, I binge drank my ass off. 

Now, I'm 33 years old now. I don't "casually" drink. I drink when I go out and that's it. You see, I'm too physically fit to consume booze 5 nights a week like a neanderthal. That said, sometimes you're just tasked with drinking and drinking heavily. That was me this weekend. Yesterday was my travel day. Got home around 4, immediately popped 50 MGs of 3chi gummies, and ordered a pizza. I was HANGING. Just a brutal hangover and I needed a night with myself, the couch and nothing more. There was no way my body was letting me stay awake the whole game, and that was fine by me. 

And it wasn't necessary to stay up the whole game because the White Sox were up by like 15 runs heading into the 9th inning. When I passed out, I passed out a happy man. Just me, myself and my dog on the couch with the White Sox headed to their 7th straight win. 

And then, it happened. I woke up:

I was in one of those half sleep, half awake states where my brain was all foggy. I truly didn't believe the White Sox blew that game. There was NO WAY they blew that game. None at all. 

But... they blew the game. White Sox Twitter is in MELT DOWN mode right now. I'm not as much, mostly because I missed that aborted fetus of a 9th and 10th inning and am actively refusing to seek out the highlights, but I'm not in meltdown mode.

You see, there's this old adage that "momentum is as good as the next day's opposing pitcher" and the White Sox have 3, soon to be 4 goddamn STOPPERS in their rotation: 

Lucas Giolito:

Dylan Cease: 

Michael Kopech: 

and they're adding back Lynn back and will be adding at the rotation

This is the part of the blog where I don't talk about how completely DOMINANT Carlos Rodon has been. Like wtf were they thinking with him? Jerry Reinsdorf is the WORST

But nevertheless, their SP is the best in the division. By far. Their hitting has been WILDLY inconsistent, but is starting to flash more and more. Yoan Moncada, even with the warts he has, is a crazy upgrade to this lineup. Sure, he has his warts offensively, but the White Sox lineup as a whole needs to walk more. Yoan Moncada does that. Burger definitely belongs in The Show, but at the moment he hasn't done quite enough with the stick to wally pip anyone. Keep getting every day ABs in Charlotte while figuring out how to navigate a count better, and he'll be back in due time.

Oh, and the best hitter on this young season is coming back soon too, Andrew Vaughn.

And Pollock is going to click.

And Abreu will start to click. 

And Eloy will be back and hopefully learned how to hit while hurt again.

Point is this - the pitching has been great, all things considered. Sure, Hendricks gives up an annoying amount of bombs but everything will shake itself out in the coming weeks while they get healthy.

But Jesus fucking CHRIST is this team brutal defensively. But they're brutal defensively because they have people playing out of position all over the fucking diamond. People like Sheets, Vaughn, Abreu at this point, and so on and so forth. When you constantly play people at positions that aren't natural for them, you're gonna shoot yourself in the foot and potentially a lot. 

Tim Anderson gets a pass from me right now though. He's never been some gold glove caliber defender, but he's WAY WAY WAY better defensively than he's showed this year. I know it, you know it and nobody knows it more than TA himself. At this point in time, I tend to think that these are crazy anomalies and we'll see a good defensive stretch coming from him starting tonight. 

But if he can't shake it, move him to 2B and trade for a stud IF. Someone like…. Xander Bogaerts who apparently hates Boston and has an opt-out after this year. 

Not saying, just saying. 

Who am I kidding, this won't ever happen in a million years. It makes way too much sense. 

The White Sox won't keep losing to inferior teams all year though. If they do they do, heads should roll. ALL the heads. For a team that says they're trying to win a World Series, they can't let this same shit keep happening. Gotta figure out this roster construction as best they can and figure it out fast. Windows open and close at the snap of a finger. 

Being a White Sox fan ain't easy