Royals series preview: Chicago White Sox

Let’s think about the White Sox for a moment. Conjure an image of a player from that team. Pick any moment in the franchise’s history. Maybe you chose Frank Thomas. Maybe it was Paul Konerko. Jim Thome? Harold Baines? Ross Gload? Ozzie Guillen? Chrissy Sale? Josh Fields? Jack McDowell? Ron “The Kark” Karkovice?

Now, think about whoever popped into your head. Look him up and down. Was he wearing white hosiery?

Unless you thought of Lamarr Hoyt or one of those guys playing in shorts or those throwback uniforms Chris Sale hated so much he shredded, probably not.

If you’re going to have a lame team name, at least have the wherewithal to actually have it mean something. You’ve chosen an item of clothing in your team name. With the exception of a picture of Jack McDowell in a throwback uniform—in which said hose looked terrible—no prominently placed Google images for any Pale Hose turned up pale hose.

Hey, we’re the White Sox—

. . .

What?

. . .

No. We don’t wear—

. . .

Yeah, I know. It’s kinda dumb. But have you seen baseball players wearing white socks? That looks stupider than our name.

Get your house in order, Chicago.

Game times and pitching matchups are as follows:

• Friday, August 11, 7:10 PM CDT - Danny Duffy (L) versus Reynaldo López
• Saturday, August 12, 6:10 PM CDT - Ian Kennedy versus James Shields
• Sunday, August 13, 1:10 PM CDT - Jason Vargas (L) versus Derek Holland (L)

*Italicized stats accrued at AAA - Charlotte in the International League.

Reynaldo López will be making his first start at the major-league level since his trade to Chicago in the offseason deal that sent Adam Eaton packing to Washington and brought López and Lucas Giolito to the South Side. With 44 days of ML service time accrued last season in Washington, it seems likely that the call-up coincides with the likely service-time threshold having been passed for López to be a Super-Two, delaying arbitration by a year. López is one of the games best pitching prospects with a blazing fastball and plus-curve, though scouting reports indicate that his changeup still has some catching up to do. After an underwhelming 2016 that saw him take steps back across the board upon reaching the highest two levels of professional ball, López got his groove back this year in Charlotte.

Also pitching in this series: James Shields and Derek Holland. [Read: the author does not want to spill ink talking about either of these two players.]

To invoke Phil Collins, ...But Seriously it’s a really dumb name, right? White socks look bad. There’s no getting around that. Then, in addition to the offense to fashion, they don’t even wear them. They might as well be the Chicago Merkins. They could coax Merkin Valdéz out of retirement to be their mascot. No one would see them wearing their merkins either. Argumentatively speaking, no difference. The team is just as likely to wear merkins as they are to wear white socks.

The only good thing about the name is that it can be misspelled in innumerable ways (not literally innumerable, but whatever) much to the sophomoric delight of this author.

All stats courtesy of FanGraphs and Baseball Reference through action on Wednesday, August 9 .

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