Chicago P Mark Buerhle threw the first no hitter of 2007 and the 16th in White Sox history last night, facing the minimum 27 batters in blanking the Rangers, 6-0. Aside from a leadoff walk to Sammy Sosa to start the 5th inning (Sosa was subsequently picked off), Buerhle was perfect on the evening — aside from crashing out of the White Sox’ “American Idol” pool.
Phil Rogers correctly surmises that Buerhle — a free agent next autumn — just saw his price tag go up. And while that wasn’t much of a stretch, I do wonder if the lefthander’s dominant performance last night against one of the league’s most potent offenses lends any creedence to his claim last summer that the Rangers were stealing signs in their own park.
On this Thursday morning, I’ll shed a tear for the good people of Seattle. Not only must the residents of one of American’s finest cities face the probable departure of their basketball team, along with having to cope with a deluge of self important pop pundits arriving in town this week…but most importantly, Felix Hernandez is once again suffering elbow pain. King Felix bailed after facing just 5 hitters in the Mariners’ 5-4 loss to the Twins Wednesday night.
If Ryan Howard misses any significant playing time, it’s pretty safe to say Jimmy Rollins might want to revise his preseason predictions.
The Brewers and Braves have charged Jose Capellan and Willy Aybar, respectively, with desertion. Without knowing either player’s side of the story, there are a few folks working under worse conditions.
That EMP thing is a trainwreck. Someone took me up to the Space Needle once and was like, ‘hey, let’s go in here’ and I said ‘hell no.’ Just the outside of that building is lame enough.
And speaking of MIA players, what the hell ever happened to Pokey Reese? Anybody know?
Buerhle is a lefty. You goddamn liberals are always getting it wrong.
sorry. was working on a gag about an Ambiorixdexterous reliever and got confused.
Now that I’m over the factual error, I’d like to add that Buehrle couldn’t get anyone out last year, not just the cheatin’ Rangers. Buehrle has hinted Greg Maddux likes to throw a genuine spitter too. Either he’s been hanging around the Hawk and his tightly wound ball theory too much, or everyone is cheating.
i feel like i only drop by to tell you how much of a hack phil rogers is, but, again, as a chicagoan, i can tell you that he is not at all the barometer of the thinkin’ feller; rather, he’s a windsock who picks his spots as poorly as any other hack writer you’ll find.
the fact is, one great start does not make a season, and kenny williams’ managing strategy doesn’t seem to include throwing giant sums of money at marginally talented free agents. if anything, buehrle’s trade value has risen as a result of the no-no, not his leverage in negotiating an extension.
Jamie,
a mere link to Phil Rogers should never be construed as an endorsement for his point of view nor an attribution of his insight. And while I agree the White Sox are no more likely to make a serious pitch to Buehrle now than before the no-hitter, they’d have to be pretty out of it by the deadline to make such a swap…
understood, and i know that there’s not a whole lot of “talent” to pull from when it comes to cubs/sox reporting. unfortunately, we have a wealth of insightful bloggers (with the best, in my opinion, writing soxmachine.com out of rochester, ny) talking chicago baseball, but the paid scribes tend to turn in heaps of filler unfit to print: see chicagosports.com for plenty of examples.