White Sox Rotation Woes: What To Do with Jose Contreras and Bartolo Colon?

After a heavy loss to Baltimore at Camden Park, the White Sox return to Chicago, licking their rotation wounds.

The top three guys are off to a superb start, Mark Buehrle looks as good as ever, starting the year 2-0 with an ERA of 3.00 in three starts, John Danks is lights-out at 2-0 with a 0.95 ERA and Gavin Floyd is looking solid at 2-1 4.74 ERA.

All looks good so far right? Well that’s where the upside ends for the South Siders.

Jose Contreras and Bartolo Colon currently occupy the fourth and fifth starting spots respectively, and it’s a picture of woe for both.

Colon started with a strong effort in his first outing, but his next two starts yielded five runs from five innings both times.

Contreras has been even worse, with no quality starts to his name so far and is sporting a dreadful 0-3 record with an 8.74 ERA.

Their combined record look like this:

Starters	W-L	ERA
Buehrle/Floyd/Danks	6-1	2.89
Contreras/Colon	1-4	7.47

Ozzie needs to take drastic action. The team simply cannot risk losing every fourth and fifth day when competing in such a tight race as the AL Central.

So what are the options?

Octavio Dotel

The former Kansas City starter has been solid this year, posting six innings so far without giving up a run. He is striking out two batters an inning and has a decent .217 batting average against.

However, he is also giving up one walk per inning, which does not translate into acceptable figures for a starter.

D.J. Carrasco

Looking solid thus far, with a 3.48 ERA through 10.1 innings of relief work, only walking two batters through that spell. He also has starter experience with Kansas. He has, however, only struck out three in his innings so far this year.

John Van Benschoten

Off to an excellent start at Triple-A Charlotte. Currently at 1-1 with a 2.65 ERA, whilst striking out 13 and walking only 5 in 17 innings of work. With very little big league experience, however, he is a risky move for the team.

Kyle McCulloch

The top pitching prospect is 2-1 with a 2.37 ERA at Double-A Birmingham. In 19 innings pitched he has walked only two batters, but has given up 22 hits.

Aaron Poreda

Also currently at Double-A Birmingham, Poreda is 1-2 but sports an impressive 1.69 ERA in 16 innings of work, striking out 17. He has walked nine, but his overall numbers are impressive.

There is a good range of options for the Sox. Ozzie is likely to give both Contreras and Colon another shot, but if their poor efforts continue, Guillen will be forced to look elsewhere.