Chicago White Sox Morning BP: New commish; Blue Jays next

Aug 13, 2014; San Francisco, CA, USA; Chicago White Sox third baseman

Conor Gillaspie

(12) tosses his bat after drawing a walk against the San Francisco Giants during the second inning at AT&T Park. Mandatory Credit: Kelley L Cox-USA TODAY Sports

There will be a new commissioner of Major League Baseball starting in late January 2015, with Rob Manfred being selected to succeed current commissioner Bud Selig.

The big news came yesterday evening and it seems to be a good move for baseball, though he wasn’t the clear-cut choice at one point.

The New York Times quoted Chicago White Sox Chairman Jerry Reinsdorf as saying via statement:

"“While Rob may not have been my initial choice for commissioner, the conclusion of a very good process was to name Rob as the person best positioned to help baseball endure and grow even stronger for the next generation of fans.”"

Speaking of the White Sox … today they start a weekend series with the Toronto Blue Jays who are 63-59 on the season, 3.5 games back of the second AL Wild Card spot which is currently held by the Detroit Tigers (65-54).

The White Sox are 57-64, nine games back of the second AL Wild Card spot, so basically it seems the rest of the season the White Sox can only play spoiler.

As for this series, here are the pitching matchups with White Sox pitchers listed first:

• Friday, Aug. 15: Hector Noesi (6-7, 4.15 ERA) vs. Marcus Stroman (7-3, 3.34 ERA)

• Saturday, Aug. 16: John Danks (9-8, 4.96 ERA) vs. Mark Buehrle (11-8, 3.31 ERA)

• Sunday, Aug. 17: Scott Carroll (4-7, 4.81 ERA) vs. Drew Hutchison (8-10, 4.60 ERA)

I thought originally Chris Sale was going to have a start this series, but it seems that his start has been moved back to Monday against the visiting Baltimore Orioles.

This series against the Blue Jays might be worthwhile, as I said earlier the White Sox can start playing the spoiler role, and that can always be fun. Plus, this series brings in Buehrle, though he’s been struggling as of late.

Even with Buehrle, a ’14 All-Star, struggling it is always good to see one of the greatest White Sox of all-time pitch in a baseball game, even though it be with the Blue Jays.

If anything else this weekend I would like to see Buehrle and Paul Konerko face each other in this series … for old times sake.

Thoughts?