They are going to beat Seattle in five games because Seattle should beat them in four.
The White Sox will advance in the playoffs because they have lost their one semblance of a dominating starter, the most respected player in their clubhouse, the pitcher whose fairy tale return with a five-inch screw in his arm could have given them a Pedro-style lift. No more Cal Eldred, at least not until next round.
The White Sox will make America take them seriously because it still can’t. This team and its manager all but begged publicly at trade deadline for GM Ron Schueler to get one proven starting pitcher. Schueler dragged his feet and failed. Now what’s left of this Lo-Cal rotation has taken more cortisone injections in a month than the Bears take in a season.
Jim Parque, Mike Sirotka, James Baldwin and Sean Lowe form the least imposing rotation in postseason history. Parque and Baldwin could use a cortisone injection in the psyche, while Sirotka and Baldwin are battling arm problems at just the wrong time. Incredibly, the most dependable starter might be balding Texan Lowe, a former first-round pick (15th overall) of St. Louis who has pitched mostly out of the bullpen in two Chicago seasons.
America yawns and says, “How Lowe can you go?”
The Sox will win because good pitching invariably beats good hitting in October–paper covers rock–and what the Sox do best is rock the scoreboard by hitting contagiously. They will win because defensive deficiencies always are magnified in October and the Sox have gotten away all season with being one of baseball’s worst fielding teams.
They will win because Chicago in general is still far more captivated by its 1-4 football team, because the Sox ran away with a division Cleveland was supposed to run away with and still couldn’t draw 2 million, because many fans who did board the bandwagon in time to buy playoff tickets are infuriated that TV dumped the Sox into afternoon slots when people have to work.
This low-charisma team will win because it has no Sox appeal, because it probably will be infuriated by splotches of empty Game 1 seats, because it has played all summer with chips the size of Jerry Reinsdorf’s ego on its shoulders.
It will win because it defied logic to win more games–95–than anyone in the American League. And I thought I was cock-eyed optimistic picking the Sox to finish second with 85.
First baseman Paul Konerko said this quite matter-of-factly and convincingly Monday: “Cal’s one of the top two or three people I’ve met in baseball–I’d like to see [the right-hander] out there throwing left-handed. But what happened every time people thought we were in trouble? We called up somebody from [Class AA] and guys stepped up and we did what we had to do.
“We really enjoy playing together–it has been like a six-month party. There’s talent in here but we’ve won a lot of games not on talent, but by pulling for each other and willing it. We honestly believe this is our year. If we win [the first round] we’ll be a dangerous team.”
They will win because some things are just meant to be. Schueler is in the running for Executive of The Year because his farm system produced such a bumper crop and because getting rid of Jaime Navarro for Eldred and Jose Valentin made this team. But Schueler also explored trading Frank Thomas in August of 1999. Manuel had just about concluded he couldn’t win building around a big, slow prima donna with–it appeared–the guts of a Teddy bear.
Reacting to Manuel, I wrote that Thomas had to go. I was wrong. So were Manuel and Schueler when an operation revealed a walnut-sized calcium deposit in Thomas’ ankle. Now Thomas should be MVP, as much for humbling himself in the clubhouse after a spring air-clearing with Manuel as for his spectacular bounce-back numbers.
The Sox will win because this seems more destined than planned. As the spiritual Manuel said: “We might be sending out a Gideon’s Army, but I’ll take that army any time.”
The Lord instructed Gideon to attack the vast Midianite forces with a courageous army of only 300 who encircled them in the dark and sent them fleeing in panic by blowing horns and breaking jars. Manuel might prayerfully have to use his entire bullpen–not to mention horns and jars–to steal a game or two against the Mariners.
But it will happen because it looks so much like it won’t.
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