What Exactly Went Wrong in Comiskey?

In April, the White Sox were the best team in the AL. By July, they were one of the worst.

This actually saddened me a lot, because, as I wrote, by the end of last season the Sox had the foundations for a pretty impressive squad. They had Adam Eaton, Jose Abreu, Avisail Garcia and Chris Sale all ready, with people like David Robertson, Melky Cabrera and Jose Quintana coming in incredibly smoothly. By the offseason, Brett Lawrie, Todd Frazier and Alex Avila joined. By April, they were kings...and then poof.

I'll say it had something to do with the lack of pitching depth. Aside from Sale, Quintana and Rodon, there wasn't much going on. Mat Latos was brought in early and got a ton of wins, but also gave up a ton of runs, and was released thereafter. People like Miguel Gonzalez, James Shields, John Danks, Jacob Turner and Anthony Ranuado have started games with mixed, but mostly horrible, results. There's definitely some major issues with starters, because they're all getting beaten up, with the exception of Quintana and Sale.

The lineup is, for the most part, alright, and people like Cabrera, Frazier, Abreu and newly added people like Tim Anderson and Justin Morneau have been especially helpful in keeping the home runs coming. It's not in...dire need, with the exception of some changes in center and catcher. If people stick around and keep producing, they'll be in decent enough shape.

The main problem was they peaked too early- this was not too early, and they got really lucky pretty early on. They didn't have the best team to begin with, and they just rolled off with what they had, and it didn't last very long. It's not RobbyV's fault- he should stick around. For next year, they should do some retooling and hopefully they'll outlast the Royals.

Coming Tonight: Most likely unsung hero in St. Louis