White Sox 9, Devil Rays 2: The Good, Bad, and Indifferent

Box Score

[Editor's note]: Today marks the one-year anniversary of Mark Buehrle's no-hitter against the Texas Rangers. Bask in the good memories. 

Good

Javier Vazquez

Ho-hum. These excellent starts from Vazquez are starting to be the norm, as he's looked very comfortable on the mound since his poor start in the second game of the year against Cleveland.

Vazques threw 6.1 innings, allowed two earned runs on six hits and a walk while striking out four.

The Rays looked like they had a chance to break things open against Vazquez in the second, when they loaded the bases on a couple of freak plays.

But Vazquez didn't let the Rays get any momentum. On a 3-2 pitch to Jason Bartlett, Vazquez got what he was looking for—an inning-ending double play. 

With Vazquez's stellar outing today, it's now been a full week since the White Sox last had anything but a good performance from their starting pitchers. The staff is on a roll now, and the team needs to capitalize on it with lots of wins.

The offense

With a generally tired bullpen, the White Sox needed to get both a good performance out of Vazquez and a lot of runs from the offense.

I think nine runs got that done.

In his second major league start, Rays righty Jeff Niemann looked pretty good for the first two innings, but things went south fast for him in the third.

A throwing error by Bartlett allowed a hustling Juan Uribe to reach leading off the inning, and Nick Swisher walked to put men on first and second with nobody out. After Orlando Cabrera popped out, Jim Thome nailed a booming three-run home run, which was then followed by a Paul Konerko solo shot to make it a quick 4-0 White Sox lead.

The Sox tallied four more runs in the fourth without hitting a home run. The four runs came on a Uribe double, a Cabrera single, a Konerko hit-by-pitch, and a Jermaine Dye sacrifice fly to make it 8-0 White Sox.

The ninth run of the game came in the fifth when Uribe picked up his second hit of the game—this time, a RBI single.

This was another of those games where, up and down the lineup, the approach was consistent and the results were great. MLB RBI leader Joe Crede had the day off, but Pablo Ozuna delivered with two hits and a sacrifice bunt.

Carlos Quentin scored two runs on a hit and a walk, and even Alexei Ramirez delivered a single in his lone at-bat of the game.

I don't think this team had as many good offensive games for all of 2007 as they've had in 2008. There's no question—this ain't 2007 anymore.

Nick Swisher

I figured that I would single him out with the news that Jerry Owens will stay in the minor leagues after being activated off the disabled list. 

A lot of that decision had to do with the way Quentin has played, but a lot of it also had to do with the way Swisher has performed in the leadoff spot.

Today was a perfect example of what Swisher brings to the table. He went 1-for-1 with three walks and two runs scored—a classic "Swisher" game. He gets on base a lot and while he won't steal bases, he still scores his fair share of runs. 

With today's win, the White Sox joined the Red Sox and Angels as the only teams in the AL with double-digit wins (pending the outcome of the Royals/A's game). That's reason enough not to change anything.

Matt Thornton

I mentioned it in yesterday's G/B/I—Thornton looks really good. His fastball just seems to have more pop on it than it did last year. 

I've always been a fan of Thornton's slow, smooth motion and his ability to still pop a fastball up there in the mid-90s. He's locating very well and throwing his breaking stuff just as well, and thanks to it, he's only allowed one earned run the entire year.

Bad

Outside of seeing way too much of the worst car commercial ever made, there's not much here. This was an absolute bludgeoning by the White Sox today.

Indifferent

Again, nothing here. The White Sox are leading the division, have double-digit wins, and are playing pretty damn good baseball on the whole. Let's see if they can keep it up tomorrow as Mark Buehrle goes against the Rays' Andy Sonnastine at 6:10 p.m.