(Mike DiNovo-USA TODAY Sports)

Oddly, though, that isn’t the only source of frustration so far in 2013. The White Sox pitching has only rarely given way, but when they have they have picked really awful times to do it. After all, who cares how many runs you give up if you’re going to get shut out anyway? But when your offense finally does do well, the pitching staff, which did so well in those losses, decides to take the night off…and it’s vexing as a fan.

We are 33 games into the season. The White Sox have scored 5 or more runs 11 times so far this season, but they are only 6-5 in those games. That’s because the White Sox pitching staff – which has only allowed 5 or more runs 11 times – has managed to sync those up with their rare offensive outbursts.

The White Sox are 14-19 with a run differential of -14 with the loss last night to the Angels. With that run differential, the White Sox “should” have won…14.66 games. So, in that sense they aren’t that unlucky. In terms of the experience as a fan, however, it’s extremely frustrating.

As it stands, the White Sox offense is 29^th or 30^th in baseball, depending on what you think is important. That really renders most other analysis of the team irrelevant. The team is on pace – by run differential or just by their current record – to win between 68-72 games, the worst they’ve been since 2007. I’m seeing “Alex Rios: Trade Candidate” articles on MLB Trade Rumors and Keith Law saying that the White Sox should probably blow it up and rebuild. I don’t foresee things changing dramatically for this roster, but unless they do I am inclined to agree.

Phegley played with the big league club in Spring Training. (Jennifer Hilderbrand-USA TODAY Sports)

Josh Phegley’s career already has an interesting narrative and he hasn’t reached the majors yet. Phegley absolutely raked in college, and the White Sox drafted him with the 38^thoverall pick in the 2009 draft. Questions lurked about his ability to stick behind the plate, and he scuffled out of the gate in the low minors with the bat. A bat-first player out of college should probably OPS higher than .684 in low-A.

Josh Phegley, however, had some adversity to face. Phegley has an illness called Idiopathic Thrombocytophenic Purpura (ITP), which hindered him severely in 2010. ITP is an autoimmune disease that often causes low platelet counts. When the condition is flaring up and one’s platelet accounts are low, any sort of physical impact can become a life threatening incident as the body cannot clot blood as effectively as it needs to. i.e. The body cannot stop itself from bleeding when injured. For any professional athlete – especially one trying to play catcher – this is clearly a serious problem. Even more frightening, Phegley has said that he can’t feel a difference when his platelet counts are high or low – you have to do a blood test to find out how vulnerable you are at a given time.

The story of how Phegley found out he had it was that he took a few foul balls off of his leg, and then the bruise would not stop growing over the course of several days. They took a blood test, and then Phegley got a call telling him to go to the hospital immediately. His platelet count was at about 2,000 per micro liter – in comparison to the 150,000 to 300,000 count which is normal.

Phegley’s condition wasn’t responding to treatment, so in 2010 he underwent surgery to remove his spleen. Apparently the surgery was successful, as afterward, he did not even need medication anymore. Phegley has said that there is “a 90 percent chance it never reoccurs.” The White Sox tried to manage his workload carefully, and he lost a lot of playing time as a result of this condition and surgery, logging only 176PAs in 2010, with limited time behind the plate.

The White Sox, however, also kept aggressively promoting him, moving him up all the way to AA during that 2010 season, and then jumping him to AAA at the end of 2011. In fact, 2012 was the first year that Phegley got a full slate of playing time without aggressive promotions and without having to lose significant time to illness.

Given these circumstances, a 24-year old catcher hitting .270/.310/.378 at AAA wasn’t all that bad. Oddly, Phegley had morphed into a strange type of plus defensive catcher along the way, with the question mark becoming his bat. His glove is strange in the sense that he had an excellent fielding percentage, and threw out 46% of would-be baserunners on him, but allowed a disturbingly high number of passed balls. Phegley has made a habit of both gunning down would-be base thieves and dropping pitches as he has moved up the ranks, and it remains to be seen if he can remove that last wrinkle behind the dish.

So, entering 2013, Phegley was close to the majors, with his health issues largely behind him, and question marks surrounding his passed balls issues and his bat. So far, Phegley’s bat has woken up in AAA, as he has hit .325/.404/.602 in his first 94PAs this year, including 6 home runs already.

Catchers can often take a little longer to develop, and I’m not aware of any other cases of ITP in the minor leagues, so it’s hard to know exactly what to make of what Phegley can be. At this point, he’s ready to be a back-up catcher in the majors. As a very knowledgeable person I asked pointed out, Phegley’s a plus defensive catcher, and they always have a shot at a career. The question becomes just how much he can provide with the bat.

Whether the White Sox call him up before September is a different question. On the one hand, he’s probably better than Hector Gimenez already, because Hector Gimenez is really bad at baseball – I mean, he has allowed 2 passed balls and 3 wild pitches already in only 60 innings of catching this year. He’s 30 and hasn’t ever really shown any ability to hit. On the other hand, Gimenez is a switch-hitter, and the White Sox may think that matters more than the fact that Phegley would probably hit pitching from either side better anyway. Another consideration may be that 2013 is looking more and more like a lost season at the major league level. Maybe the best decision in the long-term is to keep getting Phegley everyday plate appearances in AAA.

Then again, Josh Phegley is already a feel-good story. By all accounts he is a nice, hardworking individual who has persevered through adversity, and is close to achieving his dream of being a big leaguer. In a rather dreary season, it would be nice for White Sox fans to have something to root for that doesn’t have anything to do with wins or losses.

“Can any of you hit? No? Jeeze, this is gonna be tough.” (Peter G. Aiken-USA TODAY Sports)

Almost every game this year the question for the White Sox is whether they’ll be able to score enough (read: any) runs. With their 2^nd-best pitcher on the mound in Jose Quintana up against Wade Davis, this should be a match-up that favored Chicago.

The White Sox would draw first blood in the third. Wise singled to left, de Aza walked, and Keppinger squeaked a “single” up the middle with Miguel Tejada and Alcides Escobar bumping into each other. That would load the bases for a severely slumping Alex Rios, who appears to have changed his stance to the point where he is basically standing completely straight up and down. Rios would chop the first pitch to third base, driving in a run on the force out. Adam Dunn, whose bat has to be the slowest in the majors at this point, popped a foul ball behind the plate that Sal Perez never saw, but Mike Moustakas came charging in from 3B to make the catch and end the inning.

Jose Quintana wouldn’t allow a baserunner until a walk to Billy Butler the second time through the lineup, starting the game by retiring 11 Royals in a row. Quintana would strand Butler on first as well, getting through 4 shutout innings on 56 pitches.

The White Sox would threaten in the 5^th with a leadoff single from Wise, who would advance to 2B after a throwing error on a pickoff attempt by Davis. de Aza would force Davis to throw 10 pitches, though he would eventually strike out. A chopper to third by Keppinger, a walk to Rios, and a Dunn strikeout would defuse the threat.

Kansas City would get their first hit with 1 out in the bottom of the 5^th, as Moustakas would rip a 2-0 pitch into right field for a single. Francoeur would then follow it up with a double to left, bringing up Sal Perez with runners on 2^nd and 3^rd. Quintana continued to struggle to find the zone, walking Perez on 4 pitches to load the bases. That would bring up the decrepit, ancient Miguel Tejada, who would chop a single through Alexei Ramirez in the hole tying the game at 1. Then Keppinger would kick a double play ball into the air, putting Kansas City ahead 2-1 with the bases loaded and 0 out instead of two more outs. Quintana would induce another grounder, but it would also leak through the right side of the infield to put Kansas City up 3-1. Quintana would manage to retire Butler and Hosmer without any further damage, but a 2-run deficit feels fairly insurmountable for this offense.

Lorenzo Cain would reach on a grounder to Alexei, which he would bobble and then skip late over to first base, making this a candidate for, “Worst Defensive Game I’ve Seen From Alexei.” Another weak grounder would find a hole, and Quintana would be pulled after 5+ innings. This would be the second outing in a row where the White Sox defense failed him after pitching quite well. Nate Jones would come in and shut things down, with a Francoeur liner into a double play and a grounder to get three quick outs.

Gimenez lead off the 7^th by reaching on a comical misplay by Tejada at 2^nd. DeWayne Wise bafflingly got another single, this time off the lefty Tim Collins who had replaced Wade Davis, to make him 3-3 on the day. de Aza would then loop a double to deep to right field, tying the game 3-3 with none out. Having retired no one and surrendered the lead, Collins would depart.

Aaron Crow would induce a grounder out of Keppinger, which advanced de Aza to third. On the very next pitch, Aaron Crow held onto a slider for too long and de Aza would come home on the wild pitch to put the White Sox ahead 4-3. Rios would follow it up with a solo shot to left, further padding the lead 5-3.

As a sign that all things were suddenly breaking the White Sox’ way, Adam Dunn legged out an infield single into the teeth of the shift. Konerko and Gillaspie would make outs to end the inning, but with a 4-run “explosion” in the 7^th, the White Sox were in good shape.

Unfortunately, the White Sox are good at coming up with new ways to humiliate themselves, as Wise didn’t realize a shallow pop-up to center was his ball and it dropped in for a “single.” Ventura decided that with Alex Gordon coming up, this was a job for Matt Thornton. Thornton would oblige by falling behind 3-1, but then coming back to strike Gordon out swinging. Yet another chopped grounder would find its way through the right side of the infield to put Royals on 1^st & 2^nd with 1 out. Ventura would go to the bullpen again, bringing in Lindstrom. Lindstrom would help the White Sox out of yet another jam, getting a double play grounder (that Keppinger didn’t kick into right field) to end the inning.

Crain would pitch a scoreless 8^th. Reed would start the 9^th with a 5 pitch walk to Sal Perez, however, and the pinch runner Getz would advance on a pretty awful passed ball by Gimenez. Reed would make the misplay irrelevant, by walking pinch hitter George Kottaras on another 5 pitches, with his release point looking a little late. He would recover to induce weak pop-ups from Alex Gordon and Lorenzo Cain.

Then Addison Reed would hang a 3-2 slider to Butler who would drive in both walks to right center, meaning Reed’s first blown save of the year and a tie game at 5-5. In fact, de Aza would have to make a diving catch on a Hosmer liner to prevent a walk-off loss.

Ventura brought Brian Omogrosso in for the 10^th, because tie-games are mop up situations and he gave up the game-winning run for the Royals. White Sox lose. Oh – also, Ventura called for an intentional walk of Chris Getz in the 10th inning. Chris Getz, as you may know, is an atrocious hitter. This team has a tiny margin for error, and Ventura frequently throws it away on highly dubious decisions like this.

Notes:

Hector Gimenez would continue to call for a letter-high fastball on every single 0-2 count from Quintana, to the point where Alex Gordon just missed a grand slam on one because it’s that predictable.