Useless White Sox information

A wild week of bad White Sox happenings. Here are some fascinating nuggets about our boys.

- Jose Contreras was pulled from the starting rotation after posting a 8.19 ERA in 6 starts. The last time a White Sox pitcher had a higher ERA in six or more starts was 1953, when Tommy Byrne put up a 10.12 ERA. Odd thing is while Contreras' bad ERA brought him to a 0-5 record, Byrne posted a 2-0 mark in his six starts. What's more, Byrne walked 26 while striking out 4 (which isn't all that surprising given his career record)

- Yesterday, Corky Miller threw out Grady Sizemore trying to steal second. This was the third caught baserunner all season long (in 35 attempts) The Sox' 9% rate of throwing out steal attempts is by far the worst in the league (Orioles' 16% is next worst; league average is 25%). Last season, the Sox were 13th out of 14 AL teams in stolen base thrown out percentage (18% to league average 27%). Since AJ Pierzynski became the Sox' first string catcher in 2005, out of 14 American League teams, the Sox have finished 13th three times, and 11th once, while starting out this season dead last. They have posted a cumulative 19% thrown out rate compared to the league average just over 28%. In the five seasons before AJ came to the Sox, they finished top 5 three times, with a cumulative 33.0% rate compared to league average 30.6%

That includes a spectacular 2000 with four catchers 38% or higher
Mark Johnson 28/66 (42%), Charles Johnson 10/28 (38%)
Brook Fordyce 10/24 (42%) Josh Paul 10/21 (48%)

- Josh Fields (37), Jim Thome (33), and Jermaine Dye (30) are a trio of 30 strikeout men thus far this season.
11 of 33 of Thome's strikeouts have been looking (33.3%)
7 of 37 of Fields' strikeouts have been looking (19.8%)
5 of 30 of Dye's strikeouts have been looking (16.7%)

This is proportional to their ratio of walks to plate appearances
Thome - 16.2%
Fields - 9.6%
Dye - 7.4%

- Finally, Jimmy Gobble became the 701st man to pitch in a game for the White Sox. Jack Egbert was #700.