Maybe the Royals do have a solid 1-2-3 after all. We all knew about Gil Meche and Zack Greinke being one of the league’s best 1-2 punches, but Kyle Davies pitched a great game today against the Sox. That being said, the White Sox offensive ineptitude that began to rear its head the last week of spring training is still very much present three games into the regular season.

Positives

• John Danks. Six innings of shutout ball on three hits, three walks, and five strikeouts theoretically should be good enough to earn a win. The pitch count (95) and the walks were a little high for six innings, but overall, Danks did a tremendous job on the mound keeping the Royals off-balance. There’s not a whole lot else to say except that Danks’ start was certainly encouraging for a first appearance of the year.
• Matt Thornton & Octavio Dotel. Thornton came in and did a great job cleaning up the mess Mike MacDougal left all over the mound, getting David DeJesus to groundout and Mark Teahen to strike out with runners on second and third to end the top of the seventh. Dotel came in for the eighth and promptly struck out the side in “good Octavio” dominant fashion. He now has six strikeouts in two innings of work this year—although one of them came on a dropped third strike, so five of the six outs Dotel has recorded this year have come on strikeouts. If that’s not encouraging, I don’t know what is.

Negatives

• The offense. Like I said earlier, credit must be given where credit is due: Kyle Davies pitched an excellent ballgame today. That being said, the White Sox offense appears to well on its way to another traditionally slow start. After 11 hits in Tuesday’s opener, the White Sox have mustered just seven hits as a team in the last 18 innings. This team is, for better or for worse, still a station-to-station team that will rely on the home run to score. And, as a consequence, this team will have an extremely streaky offense. Runs will come in bunches one week and will be harder to come across than an adult male who likes Twilight. After the slow starts the offense saw in 2007 and 2008, though, it would have been nice to see the team to buck that trend this year, but after three games, it looks like there will be no such luck.
• Bobby Jenks. I don’t like putting single-game bad individual performances in the negative category until they become a trend, but Jenks didn’t exactly have it today. After giving up a double to Alberto Callaspo, Jenks gave up a two-run home run to Coco Crisp and a double to David DeJesus on back-to-back fastballs. It wasn’t a save situation and it often is the case that closers give up runs in situations just like this, but it wasn’t all that great to see Jenks struggle like that. He did look fine in earning the save Tuesday, though, so I wouldn’t be too concerned with this singular performance at this point.
• Mike MacDougal. He pitched his way on to the team in the spring and then promptly looked like the same old MacDougal after coming in for Danks to begin the seventh. After retiring John Buck on a lineout to right, MacDougal gave up a single to Callaspo and a double to Crisp before being yanked in favor of Thornton. I’d have to think that until MacDougal proves himself in non-pressure situations, we won’t be seeing him pitch in close games any time soon.

Series in review

The pitching in this series was excellent for both sides, outside of blips from Kyle Farnsworth in game one and Jenks in game three. Pitching dominated the series, and Kansas City held the White Sox to five runs (three of which came on Thome’s home run) while the White Sox held the Royals to six runs.

Zack Greinke, Gil Meche, Kyle Davies, Juan Cruz, and Joakim Soria will be tough to beat this year—that much we can gather from past experience and this series. Whether or not Sidney Ponson (laff) or Horacio Ramirez (double laff) can be effective remains to be seen, but the Royals do have some good pitching on this team. Mark Teahen looks like a different player than we’ve seen and Coco Crisp has already reminded Sox fans why they despised him so much during his time with Cleveland. I came away impressed with the Royals, but not enough to make me feel like this team can win the division. It’s still way too early for that.

From the White Sox side, there were a number of good pitching performances (Floyd, Danks, Dotel, Linebrink, Thornton, Richard) but just not enough offense to get the series win. The offense is what we thought it was (to paraphrase Denny Green) and we’re going to have to get used to it (again). It may be maddening, it may be frustrating, but it’s what the White Sox are going to be this year. There’s no one single move that can change that, so the organization might as well accept that the Sox are going to have to win playing Earl Weaver baseball and play to that strength.