This Year is Going to be Painful

"Hold me."

I can't actually say that I'm excited to see the White Sox compete with a straight face. I tried practicing it in the mirror this morning, pronouncing each syllable with specific intent, and I still couldn't get the words out of my mouth. Our team has more holes than Jesus, and we don't seem to be making any moves to get better in the short term OR the long term.

First of all, we don't have a premier outfield. Actually, we don't really have an outfield at all. We have Jermaine Dye, the geriatric wonder, who can probably hit .290 with 30 HR and provide some offensive pop -- but it's all downhill from there. As it stands, we're starting either Jerry Owens or Anderson (the correct choice) in CF, and then either Owens or Quentin in LF. Keep in mind, we took great pains to get rid of the consistently hurt speedster in LF to bring in TWO consistently hurt speedsters! Owens has had enough injuries to the point where he and Rex Grossman could basically be hospital roommates. Just the same, Quentin is coming off of surgery on his throwing arm, and is still probably a year away from the majors anyways.

Our bullpen is still the same amazing group of failures, plus Scott Linebrink, who is coming off of an amazing collapse in the NL Central. If you can't get it done in the NL's crapper, what makes you think the AL's toughest division will be any easier? We get to watch MacDougal (throw a strike you pussy!), Logan (I can only pitch 1/3 an inning!), Wasserman (I was the only good pitcher in the 2nd half!), Massett (why am I doing long relief when I should be starting), Dewon Day (the worst pitcher in White Sox history -- yes, worse than Tood Ritchie), and of course:

Bobby Jenks.

Even after the pain of our pitching and outfield, we still have an infield with two logjams (SS and 3B, respectively), and two aging sluggers in Thome and Konerko.

Now, does this mean I'm not going to watch? No! I'm going to cheer my ass off, because it's the Chicago way. There isn't a snowballs chance in my asshole that the Sox will win the division or wildcard this year, but at least we have some young players to watch (Quentin, Ramirez, Richar, Fields, Owens, Sweeney, Anderson) that might actually pan out in the future.

But until then, I'm REALLY not looking forward to the looming break between football and baseball. It gives me too much time to think about the regular season.