White Sox Good, Bad, & Indifferent: Indians 10, White Sox 8

I'd like to thank my good friends at Rock M Nation for this idea that I have stolen (with approval, of course) and will apply to as many Sox games as I can this year. First up: Opening Day, March 31.

Box Score

Good

The offense

This game could have gone in two directions after Mark Buehrle gave up seven runs in the second: The Sox could have wrote the game off as a loss after getting down by five runs to last year's Cy Young winner CC Sabathia, or they could have fought back and chipped away at the lead.

They chose the latter, and behind four runs combined between Nick Swisher and Orlando Cabrera, they battled back and ultimately knocked Sabathia out of the game in the sixth before tying the game against the vaunted Indians bullpen.

Jim Thome, who was previously hitless in 11 career at-bats against Sabathia, slammed a pair of two-run home runs while Paul Konerko, Jermaine Dye, and AJ Pierzynski added four RBI of their own.

The way the lineup performed today made me extremely confident that this group will perform more like they did in 2006 than in 2007, even though it is very early in the season.

Nick Masset

Masset, who barely made the roster out of spring training, came in during the second inning after it became apparent that Buehrle wasn't going to get any of these Indians hitters out.

He promptly turned in 4.1 innings of two-hit ball, keeping the White Sox in the game and in a position to make a comeback.

Boone Logan

There has been a growing school of thought within the White Sox organization that believes the 23-year-old Logan will have a breakout year in 2008 after struggling mightily in 2006 and 2007.

Logan came in and retired Grady Sizemore, Jason Michaels, and Travis Hafner in order, freezing Sizemore with a nasty curveball and making Hafner look silly with the same pitch to pick up two strikeouts.

Bad

The umpiring

Yeah, yeah, yeah, they're human. I know this being a little league umpire myself. But anybody who watched the game will tell you that this umpire crew cost the White Sox three huge runs because of missed or bad calls.

First, AJ Pierzynski was called out at first when it was apparent that Ryan Garko's foot was not on the bag.

A run would have scored if the correct call had been made, although I have the least problem with this call. First base umpire Brian Gorman was in position to make the call and simply missed it—something that will happen over the course of a game.

It's the next two calls that were egregiously horrendous.

With the game tied and the bases loaded in the eighth inning, Cabrera hit a slow chopper to Indians third baseman Casey Blake, who made an inaccurate throw home to catcher Kelly Shoppach. Unable to get the force at home due to the poor throw, Shoppach attempted to tag Crede, who he clearly missed.

However, home plate umpire Gerry Davis was out of position and could not see the play, deciding to call Crede out when there was no possible way that he could have seen whether he was tagged or not.

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