Chicago's inside pitch

The White Sox lost a tough game to the Angels Monday night, but the clubhouse was pretty bubbly Tuesday afternoon.
Naturally, Nick Swisher was involved.
Filming a segment for Jim Rome's TV show, Swisher was sitting in front of his locker interviewing starting pitcher Gavin Floyd.
"I'm here with Gavin 'Pretty Boy' Floyd,'' Swisher said into the camera.
As Swisher wrapped up the Q&A, Sox catcher Toby Hall swooped in and nailed Floyd in the face with a towel full of shaving cream.
Floyd chased Hall through the clubhouse and into the bathroom before backing off.
Swisher, who was in hysterics, started interviewing Hall when Floyd retaliated with some shaving cream of his own.
"OK, that's a wrap,'' Hall said.
.

While waiting for tonight's game against Shawn Estes and the Padres (I remember that Dusty liked Estes' ability to "get out of trouble," forgetting that to get out of trouble, you had to get into trouble).

Because a few of you asked, I asked Lou yesterday about Carlos Marmol's usage patterns. Marmol, the Cubs' prized reliever, threw in three straight games over the weekend, including one in which the Cubs were up 7-2. Marmol came into the May 3 game at St. Louis with the Cubs up 9-3. Marmol didn't work between the third and the ninth, but I did ask Lou about the appearances with big leads.

OK, White Sox fans. You make the call.
In case you missed Monday night's Sox-Angels game, let's go to the bottom of the fifth inning.
With the White Sox holding a 4-2 lead, Los Angeles' first two hitters reach on infield singles and are sacrificed up a base.
That brings Vladimir Guerrero to the plate. What to do? Intentional walk, right?
Manager Ozzie Guillen opts to pitch to the all-star slugger, and Sox starter Mark Buehrle's plan of attack is to "pitch around'' Guerrero.
The first pitch is a ball, and the second one is well inside. No matter, Guerrero clubs it to left field for a 3-run homer and the Angels go on to win.
Baseball is a competitive game, but sometimes it's just better to have the catcher stick out his arm four straight times and go get the next hitter.

That's the question the Cubs are asking themselves right now. My Cubs people tell me they're having a healthy internal debate on whether to take a chance on center fielder Jim Edmonds, cut loose by the Padres. The Cubs will wait to see if Edmonds clears waivers, just as they did with Reed Johnson in spring training.

Gavin Floyd didn't have it Sunday.
After coming close to pitching two no-hitters this season, and holding opposing hitters to a paltry .149 average before his start against Seattle, Floyd was knocked around pretty good by the Mariners.
The White Sox won't be getting a sympathy card from the Philadelphia Phillies.
After taking Floyd on the first round (No. 4 overall) of the 2001 draft, the Phillies waited for the 25-year-old righty to emerge as a quality starter.
Instead, Floyd bounced back and forth between the majors and minors, and his mental toughness was openly questioned.
The Dec. 6, 2006 trade that brought Floyd and Gio Gonzalez to the Sox in exchange for Freddy Garcia should go down as one of general manager Kenny Williams' best.

Here's a heads-up to fans planning on catching the White Sox in person this season.
If you happen to be sitting in the outfield and come up with one of Jim Thome's home-run balls, hang on to it.
Since he's climbing up the all-time leaderboard _ the 37-year-old DH hit career home run No. 514 against Seattle Friday night _ Thome is offering autographed items to the fans who catch the balls.
Just don't get carried away.
The fan that came up with his home-run ball Friday wanted an autographed bat, but Thome got the exchange done with a signed baseball and signed batting gloves.
With 514 homers, Thome ranks 19th in major-league history. Frank Thomas, somehwat ironically, is No. 18 with 516.

Regular readers of the Daily Herald will note that I often point out when a Cubs pitcher turns in a "quality start." To get a quality start, a pitcher must work at least 6 innings and give up no more than 3 earned runs.

Now, here's where we need to stop for just a minute. Critics of the quality start like to point out, "Well, 3 runs in 6 innings; that's a 4.50 ERA. That doesn't sound very 'quality' to me" And they'd be right.

But the 6-inning, 3-run thing is only the lowest qualification for a quality start. Last year, I began keeping a log of Cubs quality starts. Anybody care to take a guess what the Cubs' record and the starters' ERA were in quality starts. Maybe just over .500 with, say, a 3.50 ERA?

Nope.

Here's an update on Mark Buehrle's bat attack on the space heater in the White Sox' dugout Wednesday night.
After being pulled from the eventual 13-1 loss to the Twins following 5 2/3 miserable innings, an angry Buehrle grabbed one of Juan Uribe's bats and started teeing off on the heater.
Maybe Buehrle's outburst did what the blow-up dolls and Ozzie Guillen's bleeping diatribe could not _ inspire a win Thursday.
Anyway, Buehrle said he was worried about the damage he caused to the space heater, which was smoking after the assault.
On Thursday, the heater showed obvious signs of abuse, but it was actually working. And according to a "source,'' Buehrle never came close to blowing up all his teammates on the bench.

OK, that's a cliche, but stick with me. It means something to today's conversation. Cubs right fielder Kosuke Fukudome ought to be the happiest man on the team about returning home to Wrigley Field, where the Cubs open a three-game weekend series against the D'Backs beginning tomorrow.

Fukudome has absolutely torn it up at Wrigley Field this year while struggling on the road. At home, he's 26-for-58 for a .448 batting average. He also has a .543 on-base percentage at Wrigley Field and a .638 slugging percentage.

Away from the Friendly Confines, it's a different story. He's 14-for-67 (.209) with an OBP of .289 and a slugging percentage of .299.

Greetings from the Rainforest, a.k.a. U.S. Cellular Field. The White Sox and Twins are still waiting to play Wednesday night, and the skies might clear by 9 p.m. or so.
The again, maybe not.
The weather on the South Side has been brutal so far this season, but let's not harp about all of the moisture that has thus far made groundskeeper Roger Bossard the busiest man in major-league baseball.
Let's talk about managers, specificially Ozzie Guillen.
As the rain has been falling, I've been thinking about how Guillen really stands out among a pretty bland group of counterparts.
Then I started thinking about managers from other big-league clubs. I used to be able to name just about all of them without much thought.
Now, it's a struggle.