Bullpen Key To White Sox Success

For the first 2 months of this season the White Sox bullpen helped make up for the lack of offense and kept them atop of the American League Central. Dubbed, "The best bullpen in baseball" by ESPN's Joe Morgan it seemed like they were going to make manager Ozzie Guillen's job pretty easy.  Then the injuries started to pile up, closer Bobbie Jenks with a bad back, set up man Scott Linebrink with a sore shoulder and Boone Logan suddenly becoming ineffective, the bullpen started unraveling.

Ozzie had to rearrange roles and figure out who would would work the seventh and eighth and who would close.  Fortunately Jenks was back shortly after the All Star break and Matt Thornton and Octavio Dotel stepped up to stabilize the bullpen until Linebrink could return.

Moving into the ALDS versus the Tampa Rays the bullpen will need to provide Guillen with quality innings to provide relief for the over worked starters.  

Here is how the White Sox Bullpen breaks down 

In the pen

Clayton Richard- The rookie will serve as possible long relief and will give Ozzie a new left hander that the rays hitter have not seen

D.J. Carrasco- Carrasco stepped into the pen mid-season to fill a number of different roles, he can pitch in long relief or come in for one hitter. 

Octavio Dotel - When he is on, he can dominate, Ozzie reminded him a few weeks ago to forget about the past month that he has struggled and focus on overpowering opposing hitters

Scott Linebrink - Linebrink seems to be back to mid season form and will share the 8th inning duties with Matt Thornton depending on the match up

Matt Thornton - Will continue to be a bright spot in the Sox bullpen, with Linebrink back this should take pressure off Thornton and allow him to work every other game to stay fresh

Bobby Jenks - Jenks has thrown the least number of innings since he had been in a White Sox uniform. His strike out numbers are way down, but he finished the season with a dominating save against the Twins and 2.63 ERA with 30 of the Sox 34 saves.

On the bubble

You're currently logged into Facebook

Do you want to share your Bleacher Report activity on Facebook?