John Danks wasn't his sharpest on Monday, and it was nice to say it didn't matter thanks to some fine bullpen work.
Sergio Santos, Matt Thornton, J.J. Putz and Bobby Jenks all pitched in a scoreless inning, picking up Danks after the Indians worked him over for 112 pitches over five innings.
Their performances on Monday continued a trend of excellent pitching. In order:
Sergio Santos
17 1/3, 10 H, 1 ER, 7 BB, 21 K, 8-for-8 stranding runners
This is his entire season. He's been a treat.
Matt Thornton
51/3 IP, 1 H, 0 ER, 2 BB, 8 K, 4-for-4 strandinginherited runnersin May.
Thornton looked a little rusty in hisreturn to pitch since hisscary triceps spasm, walking the only batterhe faced on Saturday. Herebounded to blow down the Indians 1-2-3,with nine of 12 pitches forstrikes.
J.J. Putz
6IP, 3 H, 3 ER, 1 BB, 6 K, 3-for-3 stranding runners
Thesenumbers don't look all that impressive, except that the walk, all threeruns and two of the three hits came in one appearance -- theextra-innings loss to the Mariners. He appears to be rounding into formnicely.
Bobby Jenks
4IP, 3 H, 1 BB, 4 K since May 9.
Jenks hastreated his ugly blown save against the Blue Jays as a wake-up call,tying together four scoreless outings that have been largely withoutdrama.
But wait -- there's more!
It's a pretty good sign when Ozzie Guillen can burn through four relievers and still not exhaust his supply of hot hands. Who is the ace up his sleeve?
Tony Pena
91/3 IP, 8 H, 2 ER, 1 BB, 7 K, 8-for-9 stranding inherited runnerssince May 3.
Pena hovers in bullpen purgatory; overqualified for mop-up work, but still pretty untrustworthy if one pitch can decide a game.
But hey -- ever since taking a sacrificial beating at the hands of theYankees in the Bronx, Pena has been solid. The difference is in hisslider. He's maybe only thrown two or three hangers over the entiremonth of May.
Pena has allowed 13 runs on the season, and 10 ofthem have come during garbage time of two blowout losses. This is an improvement over his patterns from the last two seasons, where he could have one or two weeks of rolling sliders before righting the ship.
If this improvement is for real, it makes trading Putz and/or Jenks easier to handle.
Brandon Allen, by the way, is hitting .216/.352/.406 at hitter-friendly Reno.
The bullpen is getting hot at the right time, with a relatively weak three-week stretch coming up (save series with Tampa Bay and Detroit). Now it's up to the starters to avoid those huge early deficits. I'm looking at you, Jakemeister.
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Christian Marrero Reading Room:
*Jake Peavy takes a stab at leadership:
"We're going to Tampa this weekend," he said. "You look at going into the best team in baseball and you try to go 2-2 and win the series here and you come off the road 4-3. We have a favorable schedule over the next month.
"We still believe in this team, and I'm happy to be in a situation where, from the owner to the general manager, they're going to try to win. There's not going to be, and Kenny reiterated it, 'Listen, we're not mailing it in; we're trying to get better.' I'm excited to be a part of that."
*Oral Sox has a new podcast up.
*J.J. examiners Santos' future as a closer.
*The B-Ref Blog notes that the White Sox have more below-average hitters in their lineup (in terms of OPS+) than any other team in baseball.
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Minor league roundup:
- Columbus 9, Charlotte 2
- Tyler Flowers was 0-for-2 with two walks and a strikeout.
- Dayan Viciedo (one K) and C.J. Retherford (two K's) went 0-for-4.
- Brent Lillibridge and Stefan Gartrell hit solo shots.
- Kannapolis 2, Savannah 2 (Susp. 13 innings)
- Miguel Gonzalez went 2-for-5 with a triple and a strikeout.
- Trayce Thompson had a single and three strikeouts over six at-bats.
- Brady Shoemaker went 0-for-5 with four strikeouts.
- Kyle Colligan drew two walks in five plate appearances.
Daniel Hudson is one of Baseball America's Stars of the Weekend.
