The 2009 White Sox AKA How Greg Walker Might Keep His Job

See you behind the bleachers, baby.

With yesterday's come-from-behind White Sox victory, two incredible things happened. First of all, Gordon Beckham's average dropped to .299 by going 0/2. Second, the 6 "constant" players for the Sox (Thome, Konerko, AJ, Dye, Alexei and Podsednik) ended yesterday's game with a combined average of .290. That's pretty much ridiculous for a team that struggled to hit for the last three years.

Obviously, an unprescedented turnaround by Pods has helped his batting average enormously, but no one really expected Konerko and AJ to have career years. Likewise, the team batting average doesn't account for Beckham (as I said earlier, hitting .299), and Quentin (currently hitting .232, but come on - how long is THAT going to last).

One of my high hopes for the 2009 season was that if the Sox offense tanked, it would finally be time to say goodbye to Greg Walker. The majority of "established" hitters that have come here and tanked (see: Nick Swisher, Wilson Betemit, Toby Hall...etc) is a little too common to just call it coincidence. It's also worth noting that the 2007 team's best hitter was Rob Mackowiak with a .275 average. Pathetic.

With this recent resurgence of the offense (I actually watch the games if the Sox are down by less than 3 now), I'm wondering how much - if any - of this has to do with Walker. I highly doubt that he decided to change how he handles the game...so how much of this is just dumb luck? How much of the last few years was just shitty luck on his part? Does the hitting coach DO anything? It's not like my perpetual request to fire Ron Turner - the Offensive Coordinator IS responsible for a shitty gameplan...but the hitting coach? I'm not so sure.

Comments?

These Bears didn't deserve the Playoffs

Where's your heart???

Well, that was fun. 

We can't guard a big time WR, our run defense is useless without Mike Brown and our run game is totally dependent on Forte's health.

Let's be honest, this Bears team did not deserve to make the playoffs: a mediocre offense and a slightly better than average defense. Sure, we were good enough to keep most of our games close enough to win and for 9 games our special teams and a few big plays put us over the top. 

Tillman can't stop a big-time WR (see 2008 stats against us from Steve Smith, Reggie Wayne, Roddy White, Megatron, etc) and our secondary can't compensate over the top or against the run, especially without Mike Brown. Our OL is getting older and our LB's are weak except for Briggs. Our WR's are a joke and our best reciever, Greg Olsen, dropped 2 potential game tying TD's in the 4th quarter.

It's tough to catch passes in tough coverage!

So let's take an honest look at the team and tell it like it is... we are a 9-7 team that could easily have been 7-9 and  we have more holes than TPC's old boxers. 

Worst of all, we played wihout emotion today. There was no heart, there was no fire and no urgency. We didn't go down fighting and our defense quit in the middle of the second half. There is nothing worse than watching your team and feeling more invested than the guys on the field. Great call for the Texans not to post the other NFL scores during the game: our guys looked distracted and confused and probably contributed to our general sense of distraction. Come on guys, you own your own destiny, just win the fucking game. (Sidenote: Oakland and Philly won, and we would have moved on despite the Vikings win). 

On another note, I almost feel bad for the Patriots - a team that really deserved to go to the postseason and is playing better football than any team in the NFC right now. Hell, they should give points against any team outside the 1st round bye's. Maybe the Bears can overspend on Cassell?

-KEG