Guillen wants 'pathetic' Sox defense to improve
PHOENIX - The wind was blowing out at Municipal Stadium on Sunday, so manager Ozzie Guillen cut his pitching staff some slack following the White Sox' ugly 12-10 Cactus League win over the Athletics.
Guillen wasn't so kind with the Sox' defense, which committed 4 errors and has been generally ragged the past few days.
Second baseman Brent Lillibridge made 2 errors against Oakland, and third baseman Josh Fields also made a fielding miscue.
"I think our pitching, I couldn't judge how good we were, but our defense was pathetic," Guillen said. "And I think the pitching didn't look good because our defense made it look worse. One thing about this club, we expect to win with defense and pitching. We don't expect to win with offense.
"Our defense has to better. This is two weeks before the season starts. They better start putting their act together. This is embarrassing. It's embarrassing watching big-league players play like that."
Minor deal: Ozzie Guillen recently said Corky Miller is likely to be the White Sox' backup catcher this season.
Miller cleared another hurdle Sunday when Chris Stewart was traded to the New York Yankees for a player to be named later.
Stewart batted .200 for the Sox in eight Cactus League games. Miller went 0-for-4 against the A's Sunday, but he's still batting .409.
No worries: Bartolo Colon hasn't shown much this spring, but Sox GM Kenny Williams isn't worried about the 35-year-old right-hander being ready for the start of the season.
Colon is expected to pitch in another minor-league game Wednesday.
"If I'm not mistaken, he's got three outings left (before the season)," Williams said. "He reminded us of that this morning. We had a little talk with (trainer) Herm (Schneider) and (pitching coach) Don Cooper and myself this morning just to make sure we were all on the same page, and that he was progressing as he felt, No. 1, he felt, he should progressing.
"He just needs to build up a little bit more arm strength. Again, we're not trying to build Bartolo up to what used to be 9 innings of work. We're trying to build him up for 6 innings of strong, solid work. We think we'll get there. If we don't get there, then we're very, very comfortable with Clayton Richard or Jeff Marquez."