143 (Day Three)

These are no fun to write when the White Sox lose, which they did last night, 5-2, to the Seattle Mariners. Javier Vazquez was saddled with his first loss of the season, giving up four runs on six hits in 7.1 innings. Mike MacDougal allowed one run on one hit before yielding to Matt Thornton, who got the last two outs without giving up a tally. But pitching wasn't the real problem for the Sox. Hitting was. Or more precisely, the lack of hitting. The Sox managed only four hits on the night: a home run by just-called-up-from-the-minors Luis Terrero; a meaningless single by Joe Crede; and a homer and single off the bat of A.J. Pierzynski (who according to the Tribune, was supposed to be given the night off, but Ozzie didn't want to start Gus Molina with all the other subs in the lineup). It hurts that Jim Thome is hurting and on the DL, as is Scottie Pods, but what's going on with the rest of the team? Time to snap out of this hitting funk.

At the Wizards-Cavaliers playoff game on Monday, the guy next to me commented that almost all of the white guys in the NBA are from another country, which led to a discussion of the demographics of baseball teams. I noted the declining number of African-American players, while he said that he thought that half the players in the Majors were Latinos. While I think he was engaging in a bit of hyperbole, I noted that but for injury replacements (Molina, Andy Gonzalez, and Terrero), the Sox would have only five Latinos on the 25-man roster: Alex Cintron, Jose Contreras, Pablo Ozuna, Juan Uribe, and Vazquez. By contrast there are 18 Caucasians, along with Tadahito Iguchi (Japanese), and Jermaine Dye, the sole African American on the team. That last number is particularly surprising given that it's been 60 years now since Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier. I don't know if the Sox are unusual in their roster makeup, but it's kind of interesting. Anyway, Go Sox!