Jon Rauch earned a reprieve Thursday and will remain in the rotation for Friday’s start in Oakland.
Rauch yielded runs in four innings last Sunday, blowing an 8-3 lead against Detroit in his second start. Manager Jerry Manuel had considered using Jim Parque in Rauch’s spot.
“I want to give Rauch another shot,” Manuel said. “He really hasn’t been on schedule. He missed a few starts, got rained out. This will give him another opportunity to pitch on a regular schedule.”
Parque will stay in the bullpen for now, acting as insurance in case any of the three unproven starters–Rauch, Jon Garland or Dan Wright–falter. He’ll be used in long relief, taking the departed Lorenzo Barcelo’s spot.
“He’ll have to work himself back into it,” Manuel said, adding Parque could get a spot start down the road.
Chilling out: Royce Clayton and Ray Durham were on the bench before Thursday’s game, seeking some protection from the bitter winds off of Lake Erie. The Sox experienced a 34-degree drop in temperature in Chicago in consecutive games last week and a 21-degree drop at game-time Thursday from Wednesday night’s 67-degree weather.
“People ask whether it’s better playing in the cold than the heat,” said Clayton, who experienced torrid summer heat while playing in Texas and St. Louis in 1996-2000. “There’s no comparison.”
Durham nodded his head in agreement. In general, most hitters prefer sweating to freezing simply because there is no feeling in summer as dreaded as the hand sting from making contact with the ball on the end of the bat on a brutally cold day like Thursday.
Durham’s glove was also ice-cold Thursday. He committed his second and third errors of the season, booting Brady Anderson’s grounder in the second and letting Jim Thome’s soft liner glance off the top of his glove in the fourth.
Attendance blues: Cleveland’s attendance drop is the largest in the American League, down 79,461 from last year at this point.
In all, 18 of the 30 major-league teams have suffered declines in attendance this April, including the White Sox, who have had a modest slide in comparison, down by only 2,039 from last year’s pace.
AL attendance is down 146,857, while National League attendance is down 175,227. Overall, major-league attendance is down nearly 4 percent.
Old news: Sox players appeared neither shocked nor dismayed at the allegations in Omar Vizquel’s new book that Albert Belle corked all of his bats.
“Surprise, surprise,” said one player.
Manuel, on the other hand, said he was unaware of it.
“I didn’t think he used corked bats,” Manuel said. “I wasn’t here when all that happened.”
Trailblazers: There are seven African-American managers in the major leagues. On Thursday morning, four of them had their teams at the top of their respective divisions: the Sox’s Manuel, San Francisco’s Dusty Baker, Pittsburgh’s Lloyd McClendon and Montreal’s Frank Robinson. The other three are the Cubs’ Don Baylor, Milwaukee’s Jerry Royster and Tampa Bay’s Hal McRae.
In the clutch: Here’s how Sox hitters were faring with runners in scoring position, heading into Thursday’s game: Tony Graffanino, .500; Mark Johnson, .444; Kenny Lofton, .438; Jose Valentin, .438; Paul Konerko, .375; Sandy Alomar Jr., .375; Durham, .318; Frank Thomas, .318; Carlos Lee, .261; Magglio Ordonez, .259; Clayton, .077. As a team, the Sox were hitting .327 with runners in scoring position.
Comeback road: Joe Borchard began his rehab stint from a broken foot at Class A Winston-Salem on Tuesday, going 0-for-3 in his first two games with six walks. Borchard reported to Triple-A Charlotte on Thursday. Meanwhile, Jose Canseco went 0-for-4 with three strikeouts in his first game with Charlotte and right-hander Rocky Biddle begins his rehab for Charlotte.
