I Will Not Judge The White Sox Until They Are Playing With A Fully Healthy Lineup, And Neither Should You

That's it. That's the tweet. Last night the White Sox truly pissed me off for the first time this season. Gio was great, but the lineup and the bullpen? Not so much. It was gross and I went to bed with a shitty taste in my mouth from watching it. Yucky, icky, blech... that was last night's game. No excuses at all. I don't care that there wasn't hard contact off Bummer, he was behind just about every hitter. I don't care that Robbie Ray is great, you have to adjust and not be so swing happy against a pitcher like him

Prior to last night's game we also recorded Red Line Radio. I had a long soliloquy about how I will not judge this team until it has a full complement of players. There was no Grandal last night. No Engel last night. Robbie Ray has been on fire this year and pitched his dick off. It was just one of those games, but one of those games that is infuriating in spite of extenuating circumstances... circumstances like a 9 game lead against a bunch of clubs in the midst of rebuilds:

That lead is pretty insurmountable, If you say otherwise, you're an idiot, and even though it feels like this road trip was BAD, if the Sox win tonight, they'll have gone 7-7 on that trip with no Grandal, no Engel and no TA for 4 games. EVERY SOX FAN ON THE PLANET would say, "yeah that's cool with me" if you were told you'd go 7-7 during that stretch. So everything is all good, even with how annoying last night's game was.

The White Sox are coasting right now. Simple as that. They haven't had a full lineup for ONE GAME this year. Not one. When Grandal and Engel get back and they have a handful of games to readjust to pitchers and the lineup has a few games to mesh as a unit, THAT is when we should judge them. The good thing is, is that they'll have a month to really click. Thank god they play in a trash bag division.

Nothing I have said this season changes until then. This team, from the starting staff to the bullpen to the lineup has the talent to win the whole fuckin' thing. That's not to say they will win it all. They could absolutely get swept in the divisional round. There are a LOT of good teams in baseball right now. But on paper, they are as scary as anybody. That's just an objective fact.

On a completely separate note, we had legendary Blackhawks coach Joel Quenneville on the show today. He's one of our white whales, so Chief and Eddie flew out to Connecticut to play in his foundation's golf scramble. He was honest and unabridged and I enjoyed every second of him reliving the Hawks dynasty with us.

This is what you're gonna do:

1. Unsubscribe/resubscribe to the show
2. Rate the show 5 stars
3. Leave a comment saying "Chris Pronger is a sissy" 

Thanks! Loaded episode. Hoping to have my good friend Rick (Hahn) in the office tomorrow for next week's episode. Let's rock!