No Need to Worry About White Sox' Offense...Yet

From about mid-June through the All-Star break, the White Sox' offense was clicking. Starting with interleague play and leading through the unofficial end to the first half, the White Sox' offense failed to score three or more runs just twice in those 27 games.

Never did the Sox score fewer than two runs in that span, which is amazing given that in the 12 June games leading up to interleague play, the Sox were shut out three times and scored one run once.

Since the All-Star break, though, the White Sox have manged to score only two runs twice and one run once (all losses). Granted, some credit does have to be given to opposing pitching, but a lot of blame rests on the Sox' inability to hit with men in scoring position—if they can get men in scoring position at all.

Let's start with Sunday's loss to Baltimore. The Sox only had four hits in the entire game as Jeremy Guthrie tossed maybe his best start of the year. This game was out of hand from the start, as the Sox pitching wasn't exactly stellar. So, the 0-1 the Sox posted w/RISP obviously didn't hurt the team that much.

Then came a very good win to open the series with Tampa Bay on Monday. However, the offense wasn't exactly great in this game, either. The Sox got a ton of men on base, but if not for Paul Konerko's three-run homer off David Price in the third, the story of this game would have been the Sox' 3-14 effort with men in scoring position.

Although the Sox lost the next game of the Tampa Bay series, pitching was the story of the day. Clayton Richard's career-best eight-inning effort was followed by a blown save by Bobby Jenks that was set up by his struggles Monday night. So, once again, something masked the Sox going just 2-9 w/RISP that day.

James Shields was dealing on Wednesday night, but the Sox pulled out a win against a shaky Rays bullpen despite only having three at-bats as a team with men in scoring position. Two of those went for hits and accounted for three of the four runs on the day. There wasn't a problem getting men on second and third in this game, there was just a problem getting men on base against a very good pitcher in Shields.

The Sox didn't have a bad day with men in scoring position in the series finale (3-9), but, you know, this happened so nobody really cared. Still, it was a bit troubling to see 80 percent of the Sox' runs coming on one swing of the bat.

All these offensive problems that were masked by winning three of four in the Rays series popped up in yesterday's doubleheader. Justin Verlander wasn't great in game one, but the Sox never were able to really capitalize on the scoring situations handed to them by Detroit.

Four walks by Verlander and an error by Miguel Cabrera, along with six hits by the Sox' offense, gave the lineup plenty of opportunities to score. However, the Sox went just 1-9 with men in scoring position, and that one hit came with AJ Pierzynski on second—so that hit didn't even amount to a run scoring.

A lot of credit does have to be given to Verlander, though. When he got into jams, he was consistently able to dial up a good fastball, curveball, or changeup to get out of them. That being said, the White Sox didn't do a very good job of getting the little things done to score runs.

After Dewayne Wise doubled to lead off the third, Alexei Ramirez failed to hit a ball to the right side that would have moved Wise into third with one out. Instead, he popped out to short. After Jermaine Dye walked, Jim Thome struck out and Paul Konerko grounded out—it's important to note that he swung at the first pitch he saw, which was a low-and-away curveball—to end the inning.

That situation and the ninth inning were microcosms of the Sox' offense in game one. In the ninth, Pierzynski, Carlos Quentin, and Chris Getz began with inning with three straight singles to load the bases for Gordon Beckham. On the third pitch of his at-bat, Beckham chopped a ball right back to Verlander, who promptly turned it into a 1-2-3 double play to kill the Sox rally.

Okay, so game one was frustrating for the Sox from an offensive standpoint, but game two was far worse. The Sox couldn't solve Eddie Bonine, picking up just three runs against a pitcher who had a 4.67 ERA in AAA this year. All three runs came via the home run, and the Sox only had a handful of at-bats with men on second and/or third (1-4 w/RISP).

Maybe there still was a hangover from Mark Buehrle's perfect game, maybe they were caught in-between because of Verlander, or maybe the offense is just going through one of those slumps that every team sees at some point in the year. Most likely, it's a combination of facing good pitching and going through one of those RISP variances that are going to happen over the course of a 162-game season.

So don't panic if the Sox can't pick up four or five runs off Edwin Jackson this afternoon. The Sox do need to at least split these next two games with Detroit, but know that these offensive woes won't last the rest of the season. Eventually, the Sox will start to pick up those timely hits—and I'm not saying that because I have a lot of confidence in the Sox lineup, I'm saying that because eventually, every team goes into and comes out of offensive slumps (yes, even the Royals).

There's still a lot of baseball to be played this season, and eventually, the offense will turn it around. Look at Detroit—the Tigers' offense really scuffled after the All-Star break, but they faced a lot of good pitching, too. Not to say they haven't faced decent pitching in the first two games against the Sox, but their offense looked pretty good on Friday.

Slumps rarely last forever, and if they do, then bad luck has a lot that team or player's struggles.

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