Game 68: White Sox 6 Pirates 1

So I suppose the first thing everyone wants to talk about is John Van Benschoten. He was OK tonight, and I think that's about the best way to describe it. He went 5 and 2/3rds innings and while two earned runs show up on the stat sheet, they were only "earned" because of the baffling decision to not give Adam LaRoche an error for an awful throw to the plate that would've nailed Jermaine Dye and ended the inning if it had been remotely on target. And while he certainly looked adequate tonight, let's remember he faced a terrible White Sox squad that started two guys tonight (Jerry Owens and Josh Fields) that I honestly had no idea existed before tonight. He wore down pretty quickly (no strikeouts after the third) and struggled with control a lot. I can't say for sure, but I'm afraid that a good team would destroy the pitcher I saw tonight.

What else? The offense wasn't terrible against Buehrle, but it was also unable to string any hits together at any point except the second inning. (Inserting tongue in cheek) Maybe it's because Jim Tracy was at his son's graduation and the team needs his guidance to get clutch hits (removing tongue). The worst part about the team, though, is the bullpen. I seriously considered leaving in the sixth inning when Grabow took the mound with a 2-1 deficit (for the record: I lasted until the ninth when the prospect of watching the utter failure that is Tony Armas was too great for me and I had to bounce). He gave up a mammoth (as in, to the second level of bleachers mammoth) homer to a nice gentleman named Josh Fields. Given Fields' status as a former first round pick and his minor league numbers, I suspect he's a decent prospect. That does not excuse Grabow. Dan Kolb is just about as bad as I feared he would be; that no strike out miracle act from 2004 was a looong time ago. Tony Armas? I don't want to talk about him. This might be the worst bullpen in history right now. I'm not sure I'm kidding.