Dorks And Losers

Win­ning the 2005 World Series was the best thing that could have hap­pened to the Chicago White Sox. How­ever, the ram­i­fi­ca­tions of going so deep into Octo­ber meant being super worn out in 2006. Mark Buehrle was one par­tic­u­lar pitcher seem­ingly very affected by the large inning workload.

2005 stats: 16–8 with a 3.12 ERA and 149 SO in 236.2 IP
2006 stats: 12–13 with a 4.99 ERA and 98 SO in 204.0 IP

Well, I think Buehrle got over the men­tal hur­dle of com­ing back with a one walk no hit­ter against the Texas Rangers Wednes­day night. The ironic thing is that he walked Sammy Sosa, who before the game had only walked once in 49 at-bats. Go fig­ure. A per­fect game would have been great, but a no hit­ter still puts you pretty spe­cial com­pany. Buehrle threw 66 strikes on 106 pitches, a sur­pris­ingly low num­ber given the K’s (and no punch-outs to Sosa).

Mucho con­grats.
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In other news, for­mer teen phe­nom Felix Her­nan­dez is hurt.

When Her­nan­dez left, a hush fell over the Safeco Field crowd…

The entire Mariners orga­ni­za­tion will be second-guessed as this was the first start for Her­nan­dez in a week, due to var­i­ous cir­cum­stances. If he misses more than a month, say hello to the A.L. West cel­lar Seat­tle.
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Alex Rodriguez hit another home run. That makes a MLB lead­ing nine. Before the game, A-Rod was slug­ging .979 to push his OPS to a ridicu­lous 1.427. You can do the math to fig­ure out his OBP.
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Barry Bonds home­red in the bot­tom of the 8th inning to tie the game at 5-all against the St. Louis Car­di­nals. That puts him at four on the sea­son and 738 for his career, only 17 away from tying Hank Aaron’s all-time record. A win would put the team’s record at 5–8. Absolutely ter­ri­ble. The hit­ting needs to get hot. Randy Winn needs to step up.

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