Chicago White Sox: Lack of Righties in the Pen Good for Struggling John Danks

The Chicago White Sox have one of baseball's more promising young left-handers in John Danks.  Last offseason the club made an attempt to sign him to a long term extension, to no avail.

Could Danks be starting to feel a bit of regret for not signing for that long-term security?

Danks is in the middle of a pitcher's worst nightmare, as the snake-bit southpaw is currently 0-8 on the season. Some people believed Danks could very well be Chicago's ace in 2011. 

Now it's seems more likely that the 26-year-old hurler could be moved to the bullpen.

Danks suffered through his worst outing of the season Sunday afternoon, a four-inning, nine-run drubbing at the hands of the Toronto Blue Jays. Danks has a 5.25 ERA, by far the worst of the six Chicago starters.

What may be keeping Danks in the rotation for now is a lack of right-handed pitchers in the White Sox bullpen.

Tony Pena just went on the 15-day DL Sunday. Right-hander Lucas Harrell is coming up to replace him, but even with Pena, the Sox had just Jesse Crain and closer Sergio Santos throwing from the right side.

One extra starter means one fewer relievers. 

Guillen may elect to remove Edwin Jackson from the rotation to give the White Sox better matchup options in the bullpen.

This would keep Danks in the starting mix.

Danks hasn't been as terrible as his record suggests, though he has an 8.10 ERA in his last four starts. 

However, he has been anything but the kind of pitcher the White Sox were looking to lock up on a long-term basis. 

Hopefully he can put an awful performance behind him and take the goose egg out of the win column soon.