Yep, time to catch up on all that crap I've got on TiVo...

Feh. Well, suffice it to say that I don't feel like rehashing or even discussing much the Twins' 3-game sweep of the Sox, culminating in today's embarrassing, pathetic display, where the Sox really had to work hard to give the game away to the Twins -- terrible baserunning, terrible defense, terrible execution at the plate. 3-1/2 games back, the White Sox organization is faced with the realization that when you stock your team with power-hitting slow guys and two of those guys with All-Star credentials go down with injuries, you may very well find yourself in trouble.

The Sox picked a really inopportune time to lay an egg -- sold out weekday crowds (a rarity), potential to put some distance between themselves and second place, a definite "buzz" about the team brewing in Chicago. I witnessed them play Corpseball in person on Monday, hoped it would get better on Tuesday (it didn't), and tore my hair out at work today watching them (on Gamechannel) get caught stealing twice in a row with no outs and only scoring once with the bases loaded, dropping foul popups and then watching the Twins score the winning run seconds later.

Perhaps this team isn't much different than the 77-win team I predicted before the season started. I sure didn't think so just a week ago. But, what I witnessed during this Twins series seems so freaking goddamn familiar; the Sox have pulled dead rabbits out of their hat pretty much every year since 2000.

Have I given up hope? Nope. Still plenty of baseball to be played, and there's always the possibility that some of the stiffs in the Sox offense will wake up and perform to their abilities.

For a while at least, I'm going to pull back and focus my energies elsewhere. For instance, the Democratic National Convention coverage. And all those issues of The Nation and The New Yorker that are weighting down my backpack. And the, uh, 3 episodes of "Six Feet Under" I still need to watch. Time's a-wastin'...