Requiem For A Season

Sunday, October 3, 2010

The 2010 White Sox Season

What a crazy, bizarre year!  This was easily — in my 20 seasons of White Sox baseball — the most bizarre season I’ve experienced.  2010 was really three campaigns smushed into six months.  We fought through the first two months — which would normally be enough to kill most teams and most seasons — enjoyed an extraordinary, record-setting mid summer hot streak, then stumbled in August before righting the ship somewhat (albeit too late) in September.

The roller coaster of on field rsults created a very unique emotional season.  Out of it.  Back in it.  We might not lose again to a sense of finality as our bullpen health and struggles seemed to doom us (along with the Twins stunning success) well before the season closed.

Strange, in a sense, because if you look at all of the phases of the game — offense, defense, starting pitching, bullpen — we had periods of time, sometimes lengthy, when we just dominated.  Then there were other times when we really struggled.  I can’t ever recall that type of dramatic swing in performances in these areas during a single season.

A few of the story lines as I think back (feel free to comment with your own):

Ultimately outperformed expectations

Still a sense of falling short

Amazing Paul Konerko.  Class.  Flair for the dramatic.  Clutch.  Definition of MVP.

Future excitement about Chris Sale, Brent Morel and Dayan Vicideo

Awe at Omar Vizquel’s durability and flair

How good our defense was in mid summer with three shortstops on the infield

Fun watching our starting rotation click during our hot streak

Winning four of six against Chicago’s NL team

Dominant bullpen when all available

Alex Rios patrolling centerfield and hitting line drives

Andruw Jones’ 400th HR

Juan Pierre on the base paths

Four World Champion trophies in one place

Frank Thomas Day

Nancy Faust’s Goodbye

 

A Few Notes to Remember

25-33 over the first 58 games, 9.5 games out

26-5 run and a division lead of as much as 3.5 games

11 straight wins (June 15-26)

First place as late as 8/11

Eighth above .500 finish in the last 11 seasons

Buehrle winning at least 10 games with 30 starts and 200 IP for 10 straight years

Pierre becoming the first Sox to lead the AL in steals since Luis Aparicio (1961)

 

Thanks

As another season ends, thank you to all the White Sox fans who followed this blog in 2010.  I wasn’t always the most consistent of correspondents — my day job seemed to get in the way a lot this summer — but I so appreciate your coming back here time and again, your feedback, questions and comments and most importantly, your passion for the White Sox.  It’s what keeps all of us coming back …

Thanks

Scott