Blue Jays 4, White Sox 3: The Good, Bad, and Indifferent

Box Score

Good

Jose Contreras

Once again, Contreras pitched well enough to keep the White Sox in the game, throwing a solid eight-inning complete game and allowing four runs.

The key for Contreras today? No walks. He struck out five and allowed six hits, but again: he didn't walk anybody.

When Contreras is getting ahead in the count and not putting men on base, he'll go deep into games like he did today and pitch very well.

The White Sox' five-game losing streak certainly cannot be attributed to poor pitching, and Contreras has been a big part of the strong performances turned in by the Sox starters during this skid.

The offense

It may come as a huge surprise to see the offense in this category, but any time you can score three runs off Roy Halladay, you did your job.   

In the top of the fourth, Nick Swisher led off with a double and Orlando Cabrera reached on a throwing error by David Eckstein. Jim Thome then singled in Swisher before Paul Konerko connected for an RBI double that scored Cabrera.

Thome would score on a groundout by A.J. Pierzynski for the third run of the game.

Halladay is one of the premier pitchers in the league, and even though the Sox only mustered four hits, the three runs were good enough for me to put the lineup in the "good" category.

Hopefully, their success against Halladay will carry over into the next few games that are against lesser pitching opponents. 

Bad

Hawk Harrelson

I usually love Hawk, but today, his complaining about the missed call by Dale Scott became unbearable.

In the bottom of the third inning, Alex Rios doubled to put runners on second and third with nobody out. David Eckstein then hit a chopper to Cabrera, who charged it and put a tag on Rios' leg, as Rios ran into Cabrera.

Scott was behind the play and couldn't see that Cabrera applied the tag, so he ruled that Rios was not tagged. However, it was clear to everyone in front of the play that Rios was tagged and should have been called out.

What Harrelson was complaining about was that Scott did not call a conference between the umpires to make the correct call. Hawk had a legitimate grip about this, but he continued to harp on it, especially after Contreras allowed a two-run double to Matt Stairs.

The simple fact of it was this, however: Contreras got the next out after Cabrera threw Eckstein out, so there were two out. He had a 3-2 count on Stairs and easily could have got out of the inning unscathed.

The fact that Toronto scored three runs in the inning (which did decide the game) was not Scott or the other umpire's faults. It was Contreras' fault for throwing Stairs a fastball right down the middle.

Pitching over mistakes, whether made by umpires or fielders, is something that pitchers need to do, and Contreras, despite his overall solid performance, was unable to do that in today's game.  

Indifferent 

There are a few players I feel like putting in the bad/indifferent column, but I'll save them to be discussed in this week's weekly White Sox roundtable. Check it out tomorrow for more analysis.