Chip Shots: I Have Seen The Past And It Looked Mediocre

Chip Shots
A Sports Blog

Meet the Staff

I'm Chip Ramsey a career broadcaster who has been a sports radio program director in Milwaukee and Nashville. I've covered everything from high school and college sports (including the SEC, Big Ten, MVC and OVC) to Major League Baseball, The NFL and the NHL. I have a few things to say, and when I want to say them, I say them here.

I mostly talk about my teams, which would be the White Sox, Bears, and Blackhawks, but I do talk about other things as well. Thanks for dropping by. I hope you will bookmark this site and visit often!

Chip's broadcast career

Chip Shots: I Have Seen The Past And It Looked Mediocre

I Have Seen The Past And It Looked Mediocre

In fairness to Freddy Garcia, his teammates didn't help him that much last night in their mind numbing 5-4 loss to the Royals.

I don't have to tell you that my frustration meter is about to pin all the way to the right.

It was a typical White Sox loss last night. The Sox scored early but didn't score often off a pitcher they should have drilled a lot harder than they did. Then, Freddy, who had cruised along in the first three innings gave up a two out, two run homer to John Buck. It was another two out hit in the fifth that put the Royals ahead to stay.

I thought Freddy pitched okay. Not great, not as lousy as Jose Contreras on a bad night, but probably a little more effective than Carlos Torres. His fastball looked okay, but his command of his breaking pitches was way off. He hung way too many change ups last night. Maybe the improvement will come with time and work, but there isn't that much time left.

I think Freddy could be effective in long relief, but stretching him out over three innings and maybe 60 pitches at this point may be asking too much of a guy who hasn't pitched all year. I think potentially keeping him around to back up Contreras may be worth it, especially when the rosters expand.

Of course, what options do the Sox have at this point? Garcia? Carlos Torres? Dan Hudson? The ghost of Francisco Barrios? Maybe Kenny will pull off another shocker and sign John Smoltz or something.

The bottom line is, the Sox absolutely have to stop this pattern of scoring runs early and then just packing up the tent and going home after the fifth inning. It killed them in Seattle last week, in Oakland over the weekend and last night against a team the have to beat.

This afternoon, Jose Contreras pitches without a net. Well, maybe. With the off day tomorrow, Ozzie has two options. Rest his pen and leave Contreras out there no matter what or call all hands on deck and yank him at the first sign of trouble. I think it will be the former. For this to be a successful day, Contreras needs to give the Sox at least seven innings. Yeah, right.