Sox Respond to Guillen's Tirade with Victory

It's a good thing the White Sox have a manager like Ozzie Guillen. He's not about to let his team get complacent after winning the World Series last year.

After an extra-inning loss on Saturday in which the Sox had 14 hits, left 13 men on base and scored only two runs, Guillen erupted after the game with some harsh words for his team. The feisty manager described the Sox effort as "pathetic." "We're much better than this," he added.

The Sox responded today with a victory over the Toronto Blue Jays 7-5. As strong as Guillen's words were, they were necessary. Since the beginning of the season, the Sox at times have looked lackluster. One of the hallmarks of the '05 team was their intensity and aggressiveness on the field, the desire to play each game as if it was the seventh game of the World Series. I haven't seen as much of this intensity this season. The team seems content to sit back and wait for the breaks to come to them, rather than make their own breaks.

Guillen is often criticized for his outspokenness, but I give him credit for choosing his timing wisely. It helps that Saturday's loss coupled with another Tigers victory put the Sox back 3 1/2 games in the AL Central. That, I think, would be enough to raise any manager's ire.

Every now and then you have to come out and say what needs to be said for the good of the team. Ozzie was simply being Ozzie, and doing it well. He needed to jump-start this team NOW before they got too complacent and lag too far behind the Tigers.

I wonder if their recent homestand in which they played six emotional games -- three with the Cubs and a sweep of the Oakland As and former Sox slugger Frank Thomas -- took a lot out of this team, so they had nothing left for this road trip. With nine series coming up against teams either in first place or with better than .500 records, the Sox will need to play their best baseball in the coming weeks, and they will need to bring as much emotional intensity and aggressiveness as they can muster. That's when you're grateful to have a manager like Ozzie Guillen who can create that spark better than any manager in the major leagues.