• 2012: 29-28 — Weaker performances from Sale, Peavy, Konerko, Dunn, Quintana, Danks and Floyd hurt
• 2011: 35-35 — Better than their first half, but still pretty terrible baseball
• 2010: 39-36 — Jake Peavy injury, Alex Rios and Mark Buehrle fade, Twins killing everything in sight
• 2009: 34-40 — Rotation carved up for Jake Peavy trade, Jermaine Dye ages 20 years overnight
• 2008: 35-33 — Carlos Quentin injury, Nick Swisher’s descent into hell, Javy Vazquez and Clayton Richard making starts
• 2007: 33-43 — A terrible team in the 1st half, a terrible team in the 2nd half
• 2006: 33-41 — More of a legit collapse, since they were 26 games over .500 in the 1st half before the pitching staff imploded
• 2005: 42-34 — A good 2nd half removed of context, but everyone remembers blowing the 15 game lead
• 2004: 37-41 — Magglio Ordonez and Frank Thomas getting hurt were pretty ruinous
• 2003: 41-27 — A heroic, but failed rally to save Jerry Manuel’s job

Basically, the Sox spent the entire Ozzie Guillen tenure establishing a pattern of staggering to the finish.  A factor listed here time and again is injuries, which would show up on any sort of list like this for any team, especially since the Sox have had less than their fair share.

Another interesting repeating factor is the declining performance of aging veterans, which is ironic given the worrying that’s been done on not just the Sox, but anyone’s reliance on “young arms” down the stretch.  The White Sox are always on one of the extremes in that debate, since they rarely have any elite players in their prime, but rather rookies and veterans on the wrong side of 30.  Neither breaking in new meat or trying to scrape the last bit of life out of Roberto Alomar are ideal September modus operandi, it would seem.

How much Ozzie Guillen wearing on everyone over the course of the year played a part, is open to personal interpretation.

But it’s not particularly fair to this club to point to any reasons beyond the here and now, and the fact is that a great deal of the 1st half was full of helium.  Chris Sale, Jake Peavy are both very good, Jose Quintana might be a steady rotation member, but sustaining a sub-3.00 ERA for any of them is a stretch, or Quintana’s case, flagrantly ridiculous.

Adam Dunn started the year showing he had his power stroke back, but he’s lost serious on-base ability since his strikeout rate has jumped 10% from his prime–his stats reflect that now.  Paul Konerko was hitting .399 earlier this year, which would have been goofy in 2006, let alone now when he’s fighting his typical wrist troubles and has slowed to cartoonish levels.  That’s not even touching the wackiness of A.J. Pierzynski this season, or tacking on late-season control problems from the pitching staff.  This team wasn’t supposed to be this good, and the 2nd half has seen them dragged in the general direction of where they were supposed to be.

There’s definitely a larger pattern here, but trying to tie an over-arching theme–poor prospects, reliance on old people–seems extraneous with such good immediate explanations.  Whatever the cause, the humbling end-of-season showdown with a chief AL Central rival has become a franchise trademark over the last three years, and it’s because the White Sox can’t maintain a high level of play down the stretch.

A lot of the methods the Sox have been employing recently–a sane manager, spending in the Latin American market so there will be more than fringe arms in the system, drafting high-ceiling athletes–could serve as antidotes down the road, but apparently these things take a lot of time.

That said, a huge three-week kick could make this year’s 2nd half mark look pretty good, still.

Follow James Fegan on Twitter @ JRFegan.  Also check out his full-time, daily blog, White Sox Observer

After Hector Santiago walked the first two batters of the 6th inning Monday night, Ventura needed to seek relief help, and opted for Nate Jones–a fine choice.  Jones was looking to add to a streak of 10 straight scoreless appearances, and was sporting an ERA that had recently slid to under 3.00 on the year.  He’s easily the best reliever on the team seated outside the regular selection of setup men.

Jones rewarded Ventura’s faith.  He was the beneficiary of a caught stealing, but also used some of his upper-90′s heat to induce a pop-up from Josh Willingham that kept a runner at 3rd.  At which point he was pulled before he could face Justin Morneau, in favor of lefty Donnie Veal.

It’s not the greatest example of Ventura’s new tinkering spirit with the bullpen, since Justin Morneau has the most intense platoon splits known to man and neglecting to use a lefty against him whenever possible would just be bad management.  But Ventura showed no hesitance to conserve resources as early as the 6th inning in a series opener against the Twins, and didn’t stop there.

Over the next two innings, he alternated between Jesse Crain, Matt Thornton, and Brett Myers for reasons of handedness (though not enough to avoid having Myers pitch to Morneau), because it was a very close game, and because he could, dammit.

The new expanded roster setup gives Ventura three lefties to work with: Thornton, Veal, and Leyson Septimo.  Now, the White Sox had three lefty relievers last year: Chris Sale, Thornton, and Will Ohman, but two of those guys served as top set-up men, expected to retire batters of either hand in crucial situations.

That’s….not really the case with this group.  Veal and Septimo are pure LOOGY’s, and Thornton’s increasing vulnerability versus righties are apparent.

It’s a setup that invites a lot of tinkering:

That list even excludes Hector Santiago and Dylan Axelrod because they’ve been starters, and Philip Humber because bleeaggh! 

But even if this list is all there is, and Jhan Marinez doesn’t get added after the AAA playoffs, that’s a lot of tools to play matchups with–Addison Reed’s over-arcing mediocrity and the neutrality of Nate Jones aside.  Three lefties specialists is a lot to work with, and takes a lot of pressure of fJesse Crain and Brett Myers, who lack the tools to be left in against top lefties…especially if it can be avoided.

And if Monday night was any indication, they won’t be.  Robin has not been afraid to aggressively dip into his recently expanded pen, and there’s a reason for that–they’re all tested.  The utility of having a bullpen full of rookies gets oversold during every White Sox broadcast, but there’s some advantage to be had when the typical five live bullpen arms foisted upon the manager during the heat of a playoff race are actually players their manager is familiar with, and acquainted with the strengths and weaknesses of each.

The Sox have a one game lead on September 6th, they need whatever advantage they can get their claws on.

Here’s one.

Follow James Fegan on Twitter @ JRFegan.  Also check out his full-time, daily blog, White Sox Observer

While I recently addressed that Rios has been punishing baseballs with the wrath of a jilted lover since declaring on May 23rd that he needed to hit more home runs, Pierzynski’s recently-ended five-game home runs streak vaulted him into the lead.  A.J.’s slugging .551, topping Rios’ still princely .542.

It’s good that they decided to have such a battle, or more, it’s necessary.  Normally, having your #5 and #6 hitters launch very serious mid-season bids for Silver Slugger awards is enough to launch an offense into the upper stratosphere, but the White Sox offense is hovering around league average when adjusted for their ballpark, even a bit below.

The cause for such a curiosity is plain and disconcerting–Adam Dunn and Paul Konerko have been very ordinary since Rios’ role change.

Well, let’s not overstate their problems.  Konerko has hit .287/.350/.447 with 10 home runs since that day in May (60 games), Dunn has hit a more troublesome .181/.312/.418 with 17 home runs and a 34% strikeout rate over 64 games.  Konerko is still a good hitter at that production level, and even Dunn’s results aren’t disastrous.  They’re just run-of-the-mill two-month lulls.  The concern is if there’s anything permanent about the causes.

Konerko’s power–despite his denials–has been flagging ever since he had a stopgap procedure performed on the floating part of his left wrist, dropping down to levels unseen since 2009–when he also had hand issues.  He’s been self-effacing enough in the past to give consideration to his word, but he’s been caught futzing over the same wrist recently.  There’s also been the bad body language and self-jam jobs of previous slumps, and all-told, the bumps and bruises are making it hard for the 36 year-old to keep the late-career renaissance chugging at full steam at all times.  He’s still got the ability, but staying healthy is only going to get harder.

Dunn’s problems are less nuanced, and thus less encouraging.  He’s been striking out steadily at a massive 34-35% level all season long.  The difference is that the first two months saw him punish the balls he made contact with at unheard of levels.  At May 23rd, almost two-thirds of his hits had gone for extra-bases.  It made for an isolated power score of .345, when Dunn’s career mark is .261.  Since that day, Dunn’s ISO hase been back at .237.  That’s not quite normal, but it’s a lot closer.

At his age, it’s far more likely that Dunn is seeing his ability make contact decline than it is that he discovered even more raw strength.  These past two months have also been hindered by horrific batted ball luck that can’t entirely be explained by the shift, so his current slump isn’t exactly the new reality, but Dunn is going to be a ~.220 hitter for the foreseeable future, and will need all of his walks just to stay viable as a DH.  That contract is never going to truly be lived up to, but it’s not like anyone expected that after 2011.

Or they’ll be fine.

That’s the beauty of worrying over the mediocre cross-sections of sluggers’ performances–it’s probably the worst they’ll do.

Alex Rios and A.J. Pierzynski have both relegated the practice of projecting White Sox hitters to the same realm as Phrenology, anyways.

Follow James Fegan on Twitter @ JRFegan.  Also check out his full-time, daily blog, White Sox Observer