Javier Vazquez was infuriatingly inefficient over his first three innings against the Tigers Thursday night. He needed 60 pitches to get out of the third. Thankfully, his only real mistake, beside throwing too many damn pitches, was a low and inside fastball that Miguel Cabrera parked for the Tigers first two runs.

Ozzie Guillen must have given Vazquez a talking to in between innings, because when Vazquez returned he was a strike throwing machine. He needed just 15 pitches to set down his next 4 batters, all of them on strikeouts. The success was short-lived, however, as Detroit countered with back-to-back extra-base hits, the second of which was our third triple hit to Ken Griffey Jr in just his 4th game played in the field.

By my count, that's 5 extra bases that Griffey has allowed in the field (over an average fielder), which nearly matches the total number of bases he's produced offensively; 6: 4 singles, a walk, and a HBP. In just four games, it's become painfully clear that Griffey is exactly what I expected defensively, an amazing liability any time he takes the field. How long will the Sox keep trotting him out there?

Making matters worse, Nick Swisher reached base in 3 of his 4 plate appearances, hitting two doubles, but he never came to the plate with RISP. Alexei Ramirez made sure of that. The only time Swisher came to the plate with a man on, Ramirez, who reached one batter in front of him on a error-ruled-a-hit, failed in an attempted steal of second base to end the inning.

The Sox had their chances Thursday night, but each time it seemed like Griffey or Ramirez was there to make a key out. Though in Ramirez' defense, he did lay out a rope in the 8th. When Griffey and Ramirez, who left 4 and 5 runners on base, respectively, weren't killing the Sox rallies, they found other ways to shoot themselves in the foot. Moments before Ramirez' rope in the 8th, Paul Konerko doubled down the left field line into the corner. The ball took a funny hop and scooted by Ryan Raburn. It was the type of play that should have allowed even the slowest of baserunners to score from first, but Jim Thome looked like he had MS rounding third and was thrown out by a solid 15 feet. It's hard to fault Jeff Cox for sending Thome after the bobble, but he'll have to be more conservative in the future.

Ozzie stuck with Vazquez for as long as he could, letting him throw a season high 122 pitches. But not even Nessie could bring home the Sox a victory. Ozzie didn't use him properly. You have to leave him in to be eligible for the win, not pull him with men on base. Ehren Wasserman, whom Ozzie called upon to replace Russell, immediately put the game out of reach.

The loss puts the Sox just a half game up on the Twins--as if I had to tell you scoreboard monkeys--who play the Royals this weekend while the Sox host the BoSox for a 4 game set. Let's hope it turns out better than last season's 4-day ass-whooping.

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Scott Linebrink, who last we heard was well on his way to recovery, now "isn't close to throwing a bullpen session," which pushes his return to the team back to the end of the month at the earliest. Ugh.

We needz sum moar runz.

I've been hesitant to bring up Alexei Ramirez because, well, I still haven't got him figured out yet. He's completely undisciplined, except when he's taking borderline pitcher's pitches. He's got a high BABIP, which you would expect from a player with his speed, but his LD% is well below what you would expect from his lofty BABIP. He breaks his bat a lot, often for base hits, which, if you'll remember, is one of the reasons I wanted him to get some more work in the minors, yet it almost seems as if his broken bat hits are a repeatable skill. I could go on, but just go read Jim's piece on Alexei, as he touches on a number of points that I would make here.

I know a number of you would like to see Alexei consistently hitting higher in the lineup--6th seems to be a popular choice. I'm still not there yet. Even though he's produced very well with RISP, I'm generally confident that a few well located pitches will get him out. I just don't know what to make of this guy.

Your thoughts?

US Cellular Field saw a rarity, or at least what feels like a rarity, Wednesday night, a pitcher's duel. The Sox pitching as a whole has struggled since the beginning of July. In fact, only once since July 1st have they held an opponent to one run or less. John Danks and the bullpen made it twice, and did it in half the time of last nights marathon affair.

Danks needed to give the bullpen a break after they went 10 innings yesterday, and he was up to the task from the very first inning. He needed just 8 pitches to get three consecutive groundouts to Juan Uribe in the first, and cruised through the early innings thanks to an excellent changeup. His change was so good Wednesday that he ditched his breaking ball altogether, going exclusively with fastball, cutter, change. (Watching CSN's SportsNight as I'm writing this. Toby said Danks' curve was crap in the bullpen, so he didn't call one all game.)

Justin Verlander had an answer for Danks most of the night, at one point retiring 12 White Sox batters in a row, but the Sox got to him on the bookends. In the first, Jim Thome tagged a 3-run shot to left-center for his 6th career HR off Verlander. Carlos Quentin did a great job making sure Thome got to the plate with men on base; first getting the Sox first hit of the night on a 0-2 pitch, then breaking up what looked to be a sure double play with a hard slide at second base. Were it not for the slide, Jermaine Dye would have been out at first easily. In the 8th, as Verlander reached well into the triple digits, Dye redeemed himself by inciting a 2-out rally with a double down the right field line. Verlander intentionally walked Thome, for obvious reasons, to get to Paul Konerko, who had to earn his way on with a 7-pitch walk to chase Verlander at 130 pitches.

Alexei Ramirez capped the sox 2-out rally to provide the much-needed insurance runs with a single off Verlander's replacement, Aquilino Lopez, before getting caught in a rundown between first and second. All of the Sox runs came with 2-outs, so it really was a rare night at USCF. Ramirez' hit was huge because of the obvious--there is a world of difference between a single or a walk bringing the tying run to the plate versus a 3 (singles or walks)-- and the Tigers had the heart of the order due up in the 9th.

I thought Joey Cora pulled Danks at least one batter too soon--I would have liked to seen him work into the 8th to really give the pen the night off--but his last pitch was a truly terrible pitch. With Magglio Ordonez in scoring position, Danks seemed to be working Gary Sheffield over when Toby Hall called for a high--out of the zone high--fastball. Danks grooved one down the middle, thigh high, and he was lucky Sheffield only stroked it for a double. In hindsight, it might have been an inspired pull by Cora, but it felt a little quick to me.

Meta

In the interest of keeping the front page a little cleaner, I'm going to implement a new way to deal with the overflow gamethreads. We'll still use them, but as soon as the recap goes up, assuming there is a recap, I'll demote the overflow threads from the front page. (So Stop re-promoting them, Wiz.) The site looked a little ridiculous yesterday with 5 threads taking up prime content real estate. They'll still be fully accessible, but they won't be as visible once the recap goes up.

From now on, once the recap goes up the old gamethreads will be available in two places, one on the right sidebar and one on the left. On the right, there is box below the FanShots listing the last three gamethreads. On the left, there is the link cleverly titled "Game Threads" in the Sections box that will take you to a page that has nothing but the latest gamethreads. Hopefully, the cleaner front page will prompt more posting from Colin and Shaftr, wink, wink.

10 pitches into his outing, just minutes after fist pitch, Gavin Floyd gave up a 2-run HR to put the White Sox behind. For the next 5 hours--I'm rounding here--the Sox never once had the lead... until Swisher's HR.

Monday afternoon, I ran across this fine piece of analysis on Yahoo! Sports.

Most important, the Sox should be worrying about themselves. Where is their spark? Where is their sense of urgency? Why is it that Guillen appears to have more fire than most of his players?

We know Guillen is a passionate guy. But his players? As a group, they lack his combativeness. I'm not suggesting they don't care, but even the brawl failed to fire them up sufficiently to mount a comeback against the Royals. It only succeeded in firing up the Royals more.

I was going to make a post about it, which, no doubt, would have featured the world "clearly" prominently. But it's way more fun to post it now, after the Sox came back from a 6-1 deficit after what should have been the mid-point of the game, then overcame another 2-run deficit after 9 solid innings of relief work with a 4-run 14th inning.

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Joey Cora made you appreciate the fine job that Ozzie does as a manager, making a number of non-moves that seemed obvious at the time. For example, he went with Bobby Jenks for only 1 inning in a tie game headed to extra innings, which lead directly to Matt Thornton being used for parts of 4 innings. Thornton was awesome, even though he gave up a 2-run HR to Placido Polanco, the last batter he faced. Thornton was replaced by Adam Russell, who does nothing but win ball games, and the rest of history.

Russell's presence on the mound kicked the offense, which had been unable to scratch across a run in the previous 5 innings, into high gear, culminating with Nick Swisher's walk-off, perhaps the signature moment of the (hopefully) still young season.

Use this as an open thread to discuss the impending Ozzie Guillen suspension, or the current standing over which some of you seem to obsess.