| Christopher Reina. 21st May, 2009 - 1:00 am
 1. Not Enough Offense
The old trio of Jim Thome, Paul Konerko and Jermaine Dye are each posting an OPS of .840 or better, with Konerko being the biggest surprise. Konerko hit .240/.344/.438 with just 22 homers in 438 at bats, but he had an OPS of 1.074 in August and .971 in September.
The production at the other three infield positions has been surprisingly awful (we'll get to Carlos Quentin later). Josh Fields, Chris Getz and Alexei Ramirez each have an OPS under .605 and Ramirez is sitting at an especially lowly .527. He is a player I admittedly missed on, because I expected him to only trend up from his .792 in 2008 as the AL ROY runner-up. The lag in his production against right-handed pitching in 2008 (.760 versus .869 against lefties) has ballooned this season (.461/.705).
2. Only Buehrle effective in the rotation
Jose Contreras and Gavin Floyd have both been unmitigated disasters with ERAs of 8.19 and 7.71 respectively, John Danks has been very ordinary and horrible in May, which has left Bartolo Colon as the best pitcher behind the very effective Mark Buehrle.
Buehrle has the best WHIP of his career, a 1.096 mark and also has a 2.77 ERA. He has been consistent into May, though he has been much more comfortable at home, with a 1.67/4.58 split.
Maybe Clayton Richard can build off his start on May 18th against Toronto in which he gave up one earned run in seven innings.
3. Quentin's struggles
Quentin's OPS has dropped from .965 to .799 in 2009. His at bats per home run total has stayed fairly steady, but he's been banged up with a bad heel and hasn't had a homer since April 29th after hitting seven in his first 12 games of the season. His OPS topped out at 1.240 that game and has dropped steadily ever since, as have the White Sox Record, which went from 7-5 to 17-22. |
