Guillen: It's too early to panic about Sox
White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen is right about one thing. There's a lot of baseball to play.
“It's been 12 games, what we're 7-5?” Guillen said before Friday night's 4-3 loss to the Angels at rainy, raw U.S. Cellular Field. “I'm happy where we are right now. I'm not happy about (Wednesday) because I think we just give games away, but in the meanwhile we have a lot of people in Chicago panicking. Everyone. Unbelievable. This is unbelievable how people panic in 12 games. That's a joke.”
Even at 7-6 after Friday's loss to the Angels, the Sox are off to a better start than last season, when they went 9-14 in April and batted a league-worst .223 during the opening month, which led to widespread calls for hitting coach Greg Walker's job.
The offense has been solid in the early going this year, and the White Sox entered the series opener against Los Angeles leading the AL in batting average (.284), runs (73) and on-base percentage (.349).
The back end of the bullpen has been the big problem this time around, and Guillen did snap at the end of his postgame interview Wednesday when the Sox squandered a 3-run lead in the ninth inning and blew their sixth save try in seven opportunities this season.
Guillen said he had “no closer” after Wednesday's loss to the A's, and not much changed following Thursday's day off.
“Don't ask me about the bullpen,” Guillen said. “Whoever is in the bullpen, in the last inning, will be (the closer). Period. You see (Mark) Buehrle in the ninth, that's our closer. I don't have any more answers on the bullpen. We're going to make a soap opera out of this (bleep), just let me know.
“If the fans want to know, I don't know. If the media wants to know, I don't know. The pitchers over there want to know, I don't know. Then whoever's there in the ninth is the one I decided to be the guy to close the ninth. Next question. I'm tired of soap operas. I mean this is (bleep).”
In the White Sox' first 12 games, Matt Thornton was tagged with 4 blown saves and Chris Sale and Tony Pena had 1 apiece.
Considering Sergio Santos has been the obvious bright light in the bullpen with 8 ⅔ scoreless innings to open the season, including 1 against the Angels Friday, why not just name him closer and be done with it?
It's pretty obvious that by naming a “guy” to close, Guillen risks having Thornton and Sale, in particular, lose even more confidence.
So let's just see how it plays out, and also keep an eye on the Sox' defense, which has been about as bad as the bullpen so far.
Brent Morel has a flair for making spectacular plays, but the rookie third baseman made his fourth error of the season with a wild throw in the fourth inning.
The Angels cashed in with 2 unearned runs and that was the difference.
It hasn't been a pretty start for the White Sox by any means, but at least the early problems have been easy to identify and appear to be correctable — the closer situation needs to be resolved, the defense needs to improve and the Sox might want to try laying down a decent bunt or two.