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Adam Dunn is killing the White Sox. Yesterday, he struck out four times in four at bats in a 2-1 loss to the Washington Nationals. Over the last six games, he’s whiffed 16 times – a rate that would put the Big Donkey at double the strikeouts anyone else has ever had in a single year.

And the Sox pretty much have to let him continue to do it, having given him a four-year $56 million contract last off-season. You can’t sit a guy making $14 million per year and no one else seems likely to take on his contract.

I’ll be the first to admit that I didn’t see this coming. I knew he strikes out a lot – Mark Reynolds is the only player in baseball history to have struck out more in a season than Dunn did last year when he racked up 199 K’s. But he’s always hit a raft of home runs to go along with it.

He’s had 46, 40, 40, 40, 40, 38, and 38 dingers over the seven seasons starting in 2004, the first year Dunn had at least 500 at bats. And with the more homer-friendly Cell, it seemed like a sure thing that Adam would reach his usual number of taters.

But that’s not the case. He’s got seven homers in just shy of half a season’s worth of games. Maybe it’s being a DH. Or maybe it’s being in the American League. Whatever it is, Dunn’s failure to produce is costing the Sox big time.

The Good Guys, who saw their streak of 17 consecutive interleague series wins come to an end this weekend, are now in third place, 4.5 games behind the Tigers. They’re on their way to Colorado to face the Rockies in the thin air of Coors Field. Maybe the Sox will be able to get ‘er dunn out there. Oops, I mean “done.” Go Sox!