Throughout this roller coaster season for the Chicago White Sox, I have tried to remain positive.  Lately however, my patience has been tested.  I'm not alone in this as some of the rats, while not totally having jumped ship, are loading up their lifeboats. 

There are several items sticking in your craw if you are a Sox fan right now as the Sox head west including:

• Can these guys actually catch the ball?  Not just errors, but dumb errors.  Not just errors on paper, but things like missing the cutoff man or having Alexi Ramirez cut the ball off for no reason.  Or throw it wild.  Or boot a tailor made grounder.  Or Jermaine Dye's flat out drop of a fly ball the other night.  This must stop.  But it won't.  The only guy who gets somewhat of a free pass is The Savior who is getting OTJT at third, a position he never played before. As our hero and role model is fond of saying "Mommy, make it stop!
• Fifth starter?  Right now, the Sox have one dependable starter and he's Pink Gavin Floyd.  Mark Buehrle has hit a wall after his perfecto and needs to right his ship immediately for this team to stay competitive.  The knock on John Danks is he gets tired late in the season, which is evident by his last couple of starts.  Carlos Torres gives more free passes than a male hall monitor at an all girls school and if Ozzie leaves Jose Contreras out there much longer, he might get cited for elderly abuse. It's gotten so bad, the Sox have misplaced a 400 pound pitcher.  The Sox are so desperate for starters, they have Mister Peabody on retainer to keep the way back machine fired up.
• Hold on, Jake's Coming:  It's all fine and good that Jake Peavy will most likely be pitching in the bigs by the end of the month.  The question is will the Sox still be in the race by then?
• Bullpen wall.  The inability of the Sox starters to go deep (you know who you are Carlos Torres and Jose Contreras) coupled with the aging arms in the Sox pen have worn down the Sox relief corps.  Except for Scott Linebrink.  He's stunk all year.
• Hot air is hot air: What happened to all that talk about "when the weather gets hot and humid, the ball will carry at U.S. Commiskey Park.  For the Indians, maybe.
• Beat up the weaklings: The Sox went a collective 5-2 against the Angels and Yankees, the two best teams in the league, yet lost two out of three to an Indians team that traded Sox killers Ryan Garko and Victor Martinez.  Like Stoney said the other night, playing to the level of your opponent insures you of a .500 season.
• Ozzie being Ozzie: This whole "we're going to hit people" is silly and so unnecessary.  When Paul Konerko got hit Saturday night, it was in a critical game situation that wouldn't dictate hitting someone.  In fact, I'll go one step futher and say only an idiot would have hit Konerko on purpose in that situation.  So, when Ozzie starts beating his chest and acts like a macho man, he only makes the team look bad.  Getting into a pissing match with the Indians is a waste of time as they are going nowhere.  Hey Ozzie.  Here's an idea.  Why not just get even by scoring more runs than they do? 

While I remain optimistic that this band of bozos can overtake Detroit and win the AL Central,  I do think that the time between now and when Jake Peavy gets here is critical.  I also believe that there is no guarantee we'll see Jake Peavy out there this year.  Oh, he may pitch, but will he be effective after missing three months?  Wait, don't answer that question because no one can.

The other item is the Alex Rios waiver story.  I think it's a smokescreen.  I think Kenny Williams did it to block someone else, like the Tigers from getting Rios.  And, at the end of the day, I think Rios will still be a Blue Jay.  Don't get me wrong, he'd be a great player to have, but in 2010.  Besides, even though Gordon Beckham can be traded starting on Wednesday, even Kenny isn't that crazy.  If the Blue Jays want a minor league outfielder, Josh Fields and Brent Lillibridge for Rios fine, but I doubt that it will go down that way.

Maybe Kenny is just stocking the roster for next year because with the Sox having so much advertising inventory unaccounted for next year, The Chairman is going to order a payroll deduction.  Winning or not, The Chairman's first loyalty is to his investors.