The Red Sox are coming! The Red Sox are coming! The Red Sox are coming!
Believe it or not, this could be good news for the White Sox, even if Terry Francona is bringing guys like Josh Beckett, David Ortiz, Manny Ramirez and Jonathan Papelbon with him.
This will be Boston’s first visit to U.S. Cellular Field in more than a year. It has been so long since the Red Sox were last here that the White Sox were actually still good back then.
In fact, when the Red Sox visited Chicago on the eve of the All-Star break in 2006, the two best teams in baseball were meeting. They had won the last two World Series, and both seemed like threats to win another. That’s hard to believe nowadays, but it was true.
The Red Sox entered that series 51-32; the White Sox were 56-29. Boston dominated, making the Sox grind for 19 innings on that last Sunday to avoid being swept. And then, on their way out of the park, they discovered the secret chamber where Jerry Reinsdorf stores the magic dust that gives the White Sox super powers and grabbed it for themselves.
Maybe they’ll take pity and bring some back when they return.
It’s crazy, I know. But try explaining how one team can play as well as the White Sox did for a season and a half and then as poorly as they have in the season and a quarter since then.
Without ownership stripping the roster, as Connie Mack did in 1915 and Wayne Huizenga did in 1998, it just doesn’t happen.
“I’m not a coach yet,” Kansas City first baseman Ross Gload, the former White Sox extra, said when pressed for an explanation. “We won 90 games last year, in the American League Central, which some people say is the toughest division. If we had won another game here or another game there, we’d have had 93 or 94 wins and who knows what would have happened?”
Yes, but in winding up with 90 wins, the White Sox went 34-43 after July 6. And they’ve followed that by going 56-70 this season, including Wednesday’s 7-6 loss to Kansas City.
That’s .443 baseball since the Red Sox arrived at U.S. Cellular the last time — and by a team that had played .617 baseball (166-103) over the previous year and a half, including an 11-1 October.
Put in the context of a 162-game season, that’s the difference between winning 100 games and winning only 72.
Just how big a drop is that?
Since the start of divisional play in 1969, 41 teams have won 100 games. Their win total dropped by an average of nine games the next season, with only six of the 41 dropping by 20-plus games and none dropping by more than 25 games.
There’s really no one thing you can put your finger on. General manager Ken Williams has shuffled his roster a lot but maintained the foundation guys. There has been no run of injuries, unless you count bruised egos.
Paul Konerko might have put it best when he said a couple of months ago that he didn’t understand why everything was going wrong for the White Sox now, just as he didn’t know why everything went right for them in 2005.
“In 2005, if we had a lost a couple more one-run ballgames, it might not have worked out to be that great a year,” Gload said.
He’s right about that. The White Sox were 35-19 in one-run games during the championship season. They were 9-10 in one-run games in the first half of last year, and since then they’ve gone 21-30 in one-run games.
That includes a Wednesday game on a surprisingly sunny afternoon, when there was such drama in this battle for fourth place that you could have squashed the tension with a spatula. The White Sox allowed Buddy Bell’s Royals to steal four bases, Konerko blanked out to allow a Royal to advance from second to third on a foul pop and the small crowd barely stirred after Josh Fields’ two-run homer got the Sox within one run in the ninth.
It was fitting that Jose Contreras was the losing pitcher, falling to 6-16 this season and 10-25 since the All-Star break a year ago. An ace during the 2005 playoffs, Contreras had been 27-8 in the previous year and a half.
Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to dump his friend and mentor, Orlando Hernandez. Or maybe it wouldn’t have mattered. Maybe Contreras was just destined to get old in a hurry.
“That guy is not even remotely close to what he used to be,” an unnamed Royal said. “He used to be one of the nastiest pitchers around. Now there’s no sharpness to his pitches. He’s just another guy running it up there. Who knows how old the guy is? You’re not supposed to be throwing the ball past guys when you’re 50.”
The White Sox’s bullpen isn’t what it used to be either, as the Red Sox are likely to experience during this weekend’s four-game series. The White Sox might have got Contreras off the hook Wednesday if Mike Myers and Gavin Floyd hadn’t given up runs.
Pick a scapegoat, any scapegoat.
You could blame the haircuts. I wonder if Reinsdorf would have cared about the long tresses of Joe Crede and A.J. Pierzynski if he knew he was getting a close-cropped group of also-rans. Think he might trade some long tresses for another meaningful September?
Myself, I blame the tuxedos. Between weddings and ceremonies to present World Series jewelry, there have been far too many tuxedos on the grass at U.S. Cellular Field the last two seasons.
At least one Royal wouldn’t be shocked if things turned back around for the White Sox as quickly as they went bad.
“They’re a player or two away from being picked to win the division next year,” Gload said of his old team.
Maybe, but only if one of those players is Alex Rodriguez and the other is the Contreras of old, in place of the old Contreras.
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progers@tribune.com
