Chicago's Inside Pitch

He made the tag! He made the tag! In Sunday's game against the Blue Jays, White Sox shortstop Orlando Cabrera clearly tagged out Alex Rios, who drifted off second base after David Eckstein grounded out to short.
It should have been a big double play for the staggering Sox, but second-base umpire Dale Scott and the rest of the crew missed the obvious call.
Naturally, Toronto exploited the situation, scoring 3 runs in the third inning en route to beating the White Sox again, 4-3.
Can anything else possibly go wrong for the Sox, who are now 0-5 on a road trip that mercifully ends Monday night?

Oh, goody, we get Jon Miller and Joe Morgan tonight as ESPN (Eastern Seaboard Programming Network) comes to town. Actually, Miller is an easy listen, even if he overdoes it with the "correct" pronunciation of a lot of names. As for Morgan, I'm sure we'll hear a lot about the importance of "small ball" and stolen bases. Ring me if he touches on the Cubs' improved on-base percentage and patience at the plate this year.

The Cubs are wearing those godawful blue softball jerseys tonight. The best thing John McDonough did as team president last year was put those blue pajamas in mothballs. The worst thing Crane Kenney did as chairman this year was bring them back.

Aramis Ramirez is out of the lineup again tonight. He may return tomorrow in Cincinnati.

The lineup:
Soriano, LF

Third baseman Aramis Ramirez was wearing a bandage on his left wrist this morning, courtesy of the pitched ball from Adam Wainwright that hit him Friday night. Ramirez will miss today's Fox game and perhaps tomorrow night's ESPN clash with the Cards.

Manager Lou Piniella has moved right fielder Kosuke Fukdome from fourth to cleanup in Ramirez's absence.

"If Lee gets hurt, he'll be hitting third," Piniella joked with Japanese reporters, referring to first baseman Derrek Lee.

Having covered the White Sox since 1994, I think I've got a pretty good handle on the fan base.
Sox fans tend to be old school and blue collar, and they like to vent when things aren't going well.
Well, things aren't going well at all right now.
Yes, this is still a first-place team, but the offense has been looking even worse the past couple weeks than last year's ineffective group.
Friday night's 2-0 loss to the Blue Jays was another poor display of hitting, and manager Ozzie Guillen said Jermaine Dye (0-for-12, 7 strikeouts since coming back from a 4-game absence with a groin strain) is going to drop to the No. 6 spot in the order.
Guillen also said Pablo Ozuna is in and Juan Uribe out at second base.

Ah, the glamorous life of a baseball writer.

Got to O'Hare this morning at 8, in plenty of time for my 9:45 flight to St. Louis aboard Chicago's favorite airline. Turns out I had more than plenty of time. After seven hours in the F and C terminals, with lunch and a cup of decaf thrown in for sustenence, my flight left at 3:10 p.m. Weather, they tell us, wrought havoc in both places, although my friendly competitors, flying various other airlines, made it down here without too much trouble.

A doff of the chapeau, as Jerome Holtzman would say, to those writers for helping me out with Lou's pregame comments.

Speaking of which, Lou isn't moving Soriano out of left field or the leadoff spot.

When Jim Thome was struggling at the start of the season, White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen considered dropping the veteran designated hitter down in the batting order. But after giving it some thought, Guillen decided to leave Thome in the No. 3 spot.
If the Sox'offense continues to struggle, expect Guillen to shake things up. And don't be surprised if Jerry Owens comes up from Class AAA Charlotte to add some spark (and speed) to the leadoff spot.
Thome (.216) isn't the only White Sox hitter that is slumping. Paul Konerko, Jermaine Dye, Orlando Cabrera, Nick Swisher and Juan Uribe are also cold, so it's been a collective slide.

No, no, no, Kosuke Fukudome isn't going anywhere. Maybe that's a good thing because his numbers at Wrigley Field are far better than what they are on the road.

At Wrigley, Kosuke is 20-for-50 (.400) with 1 homer and 8 RBI. His all-important on-base percentage is .516 at Wrigley, and his slugging percentage is .600.

On the road, it's been quite a different story for the popular right fielder. He's 10-for-44 (.227) with no homers and 1 RBI. His road OBP is .333, and his slugging away from the Friendly Confines is .318. I asked him about it Tuesday.

"I do have an ally in the outfield, or I should say the fans, who support each play that I do on the field," he said through his translator. "Maybe that's giving me a little comfort playing at Wrigley Field."

The White Sox have 13 players that are 30 years or older on their 25-man roster. Most of them are married, and the days of going out and howling at the moon are pretty much long gone.
The Sox are a veteran team, and they obviously realize the importance of getting a good night's sleep.
That's the main reason the White Sox are 9-2 in day games heading into Wednesday's noon matinee against the Twins at the Metrodome. If anyone has a theory on why the White Sox are 5-9 at night, float it by me.
Jim Thome, the 37-year-old designated hitter, put the Sox in front 1-0 with a first-inning double Wednesday, but it looked like he had too much energy while being easily thrown out trying to stretch the extra-base hit into a triple.

Cubs pitcher Carlos Zambrano showed up with a little surprise this afternoon: a cleanly shaved head.
"What?" he asked in mock anger as reporters wanted to ask about the chrome dome. "You want to know anything, just wait until I pitch."
Right fielder Kosuke Fukudome will be on the cover of this week's Sports Illustrated.
"I'm not quite sure how important this is because I haven't seen the magazine," he said through his translator.
What about the SI jinx? Did word of it ever reach Japan?
"It's a lot of other people who are not actually on the cover saying it's jinxed," he said.
Here's how the Cubs line up tonight against the Brew Crew:

Johnson, LF
Theriot, SS
Lee, 1B
Ramirez, 3B
Fukudome, RF
DeRosa, 2B
Soto, C
Pie, CF
Marquis, P

A few hours before Tuesday night's game against the Twins up here in the Land of the Walleye, the White Sox were still thawing out from Monday's suspended game against the Orioles at U.S. Cellular Field.
The game was stopped with the score tied at 3 after 11 innings of rainy, cold, windy conditions. It will be resumed on Aug. 25 at Baltimore's Camden Yards.
Catcher A.J. Pierzynski reiterated on Tuesday how bad the playing field was.
"There was a lake out in front of home plate,'' Pierzynski said. "I've never seen anything like it. They had all the kitty litter down on the field, but if you moved it out of the way, it was all water.''