White Sox Heed My Call

Less than 12 hours after I posted, "Dewayne Wise continues to be brutal at the plate, he's now 0-8 with 4 strikeouts. Can we please give someone else a chance to fail at leading off tomorrow?", the Sox lineup for this afternoon's affair with Kansas City was posted on Scott Reifert's blog.

• Chris Getz, 2B
• AJ Pierzynski, C
• Carlos Quentin, LF
• Jim Thome, DH
• Jermaine Dye, RF
• Paul Konerko, 1B
• Alexei Ramirez, SS
• Dewayne Wise, CF
• Josh Fields, 3B

I'm not sure if I should be surprised or not. On the one hand, Ozzie can be as stubborn as a mule when it come to these things, so for him to renig on his assertion that having Getz lead off would put unnecessary pressure on him is actually surprising, especially so early in the year. Wise, however, really made this decision a no-brainer. I know, 2 games and 8 plate appearances is a very, very small sample size but he looked absolutely brutal. Perhaps the pressure of leading off was weighing on the mind of a guy who has been a career minor leaguer.

Anyways, the Royals will start Kyle Davies in today's rubber game. Considering how the current roster has hit off Davies (.329/.390/.671), I'm hoping for a "W."

Finally, real sad story out of Los Angeles. As I'm sure you know by now, Angels SP Nick Adenhart was killed last night, hours after making his 1st start of the season. He was one of the Angels most promising young players, and his last start of 2008 (and 2nd to last of his life) was against the Sox on May 12 in Anaheim. That game proved to be the lone win in his Major League career. I remember watching part of that game on TV and being impressed with his arsenal of pitches. I remember thinking once he learned how to pitch at the Major League level, he would be a pretty solid starter, and since he was only 21 (at the time), the sky seemed like the limit.

Now he's gone, killed in a hit-and-run by a drunk driver. He was 22. I am 25. Kind of puts things in perspective.