Carlos Quentin's Injury is the Break Dayan Viciedo, and the White Sox, Needed

For months now White Sox fans have been clamouring for Dayan Viciedo to help bolster the struggling White Sox offense. Now that Carlos Quentin is hurt, they might finally get their wish.

Carlos Quentin, who's no stranger to the DL, left Saturday's game against the Texas Rangers after making a sliding catch in the 1st inning. The White Sox right fielder has been a steady producer for the team this season, and is one of the reasons the Sox have not fallen completely out of contention in the AL Central.

Even though the White Sox are only 5 games behind the first-place Detroit Tigers, they are a team in need of a spark. The offense is schizophrenic, the fan base has one leg hanging over the edge and the team is out of money. Bringing up Dayan Viciedo would cure two, if not all three of those problems. The fans would be excited to see him with the big club and since he is under contract there wouldn't be any additional salary to take on. In terms of helping the offense, as long as Viciedo hits like he has been with Charlotte then he just might be the trigger the offense needs to get going.

Dayan Viciedo has been hitting the ball well with the Charlotte Knights, posting a .294 average with 17 home runs and 72 RBI's. More important than those stats, Viciedo has drawn 43 walks so far (he walked twice in 104 at-bats in 2010 with the White Sox). This shows that he has become more patient at the plate and has matured as a ballplayer.

All Viciedo needed was a chance to make it back to the majors. When the White Sox didn't trade Carlos Quentin at the trade deadline it looked like Viciedo would be relegated to a full season in AAA. But now that Quentin is hurt, the Sox have their chance to bring Viciedo up and see if he can help the team down the stretch and infuse some much needed adrenaline into the lineup.

~Poljak

Of Course They Swept the Twins

One of the most trying and emotionally draining baseball seasons keeps chugging along for White Sox fans everywhere. The team, fresh off a home spanking from the mommies and daddies of the American League, aka the Red Sox and Yankees, boarded a plane to Minnesota to play a Twins team that has completely and totally dominated them over the past 2 seasons. How bad has it been? How about a 28-6 record and 9 straight series wins? Yeah, that's pretty dominate.

Sox fans everywhere were prepared for Ozzie to sing the Twins' praises about how well they play after losing another series to them. They were ready for the all too customary combination of not hitting with men on base/the bullpen blowing a late-inning lead/routine plays turned into errors. For many, this was the weekend for them to break free from baseball and switch their focus to the NFL and, lest we forget, fantasy football drafts.

But wait! This is the 2011 White Sox coming off a six-game losing streak. It makes perfect sense that they would go to Target Field and not only sweep the Twins in a three-game series for the first time since 2004, but they would completely flip the script on how the games were played. What's that you say? You don't believe me?  OK... Over the three games, the Twins committed more errors (five) than runs (four) and drew only one walk. The Sox hit 7 home runs to the Twins none, stole more bases than them (5-1), outscored them 18- 4 and hit .290. I know, I know... where has this been all season!

So where do we, the Sox fans, go from here? The growing optimism has been allowed to crawl back into our minds. The Sox sit a mere 3 games under break-even and 5.5 games behind the first place Tigers. They get to play a bad Baltimore team while Detroit and Cleveland get to beat up on each other. Once again the club has drawn us in and given us a glimmer of hope to believe that they will finally put it together and win a chunk of games in a row. And once again, probably at this exact same time next week, I'll be writing about how the Sox played like garbage during the week and did something over the weekend to make me believe they will come out of it.

Sometimes I wish the AL Central wasn't so bad and the Sox were realistically eliminated last month. It would be so much easier on my sanity and ulcer.

But what fun would that be?

~Poljak