Floyd leaves early as A's keep Sox on skids
Since chasing down the Twins and winning the AL Central is no longer possible, there is a new obvious question for the White Sox:
Are they going to be able to finish the season with enough healthy players to field a starting nine?
The Sox' injury list continued to increase during Monday night's game at Oakland.
Starter Gavin Floyd had to leave the game in the first inning with right shoulder tightness after throwing just 7 pitches. Tony Pena relieved Floyd and kept the reeling White Sox in the game through six innings.
Oakland, though, got a 2-run single from Kurt Suzuki in a 3-run seventh, and the A's won 3-0 to send the Sox to their seventh straight loss.
In addition to losing games in the standings to Minnesota, the Sox have been losing players to injury in droves.
Still scheduled to make 2 more starts this season, Floyd could be shut down since there is no reason to risk a more serious injury.
Another White Sox starter, Jake Peavy, has been done since for the season since July 6 with a detached latissimus dorsi muscle.
Freddy Garcia has some potential nerve damage in his lower back and his season might be over as well, although Sox manager Ozzie Guillen said the veteran right-hander might return to the mound on the six-game West Coast trip that moves to Anaheim over the weekend.
"I expect Freddy to pitch this road trip," Guillen told reporters. "I don't know where, but I expect him to do it. I feel pretty optimistic about having him on the mound before we go back to Chicago."
Why risk pitching Garcia? Eligible for free agency at the end of the season and hardly a lock to return to the White Sox in 2011, Garcia would like to show other interested teams the back injury is not serious.
Closer Bobby Jenks (elbow) is not even on the trip, and fellow relievers Matt Thornton (elbow) and J.J. Putz (knee) returned less than 100 percent after breaking down in August.
It has been a rough few weeks, but Guillen tried to stay upbeat even after the Sox lost six in a row before heading to Oakland.
"It's been weird," Guillen said. "All summer ... there's one thing I'm going to give to the team, they played very hard. I think they really, really went out there and busted their tails. We were in a bad situation for a long time and then we came out very good, we fought through it.
"The last homestand in Chicago was pretty bad. We didn't play bad; they played way better than we did. It doesn't matter how good you played or how bad you played, did you win or not? That's the way I look at it."
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<li><a href="/story/?id=409572">Looks like Jenks won't pitch again this season<span class="date"> [9/21/10]</span></a></li>
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