White Sox Are Running Out of Excuses With Drew Thorpe

There was something poetic about how things played out for the Chicago White Sox on Tuesday night. And not in a positive way.

Right-handed pitcher Sean Burke had absolutely nothing going in the series opener against the Pittsburgh Pirates, who jumped out to a 5-0 lead before Burke recorded the first out of the ballgame.

Burke ended up lasting just 1.1 innings, allowing eight hits, two walks, and seven earned runs.

The White Sox lost the game 9-3. Had it not been for Burke's nightmare evening, it likely would have been a competitive game that Chicago could have won. Instead, the Sox were left with another night in which their starting pitching didn't give them a chance, and they lost valuable ground as a result.

Both Houston and Cleveland won their respective games on Tuesday night, making things even tighter for the White Sox in the standings. It all came back to the same problem: a lack of reliable starting pitching.

Meanwhile, right-handed pitcher Drew Thorpe, still stuck in the minor leagues and waiting for an MLB opportunity, threw five scoreless innings for Triple-A Charlotte in his ninth rehab start since returning from Tommy John surgery.

Thorpe now has a 2.20 ERA over his last seven starts between Double-A Birmingham and Triple-A Charlotte. He is 23-3 with a 2.25 ERA in his minor league career. Thorpe has worked efficiently throughout his rehab assignment and has thrown as many as 87 pitches in a single start.

And yet the White Sox haven't felt inclined to call him up.

Every week, there's a new update about when Thorpe will make his next start in the minor leagues. Meanwhile, the MLB rotation is running on fumes, and even some of the organization's best arms, like Burke, have been completely uncompetitive at times.

For a while, I was willing to give the White Sox the benefit of the doubt. Maybe they don't want to overwhelm Thorpe in the middle of a pennant race. Maybe they don't trust how many innings he'd be able to give them. Maybe they simply don't want to clear a spot on the 40-man roster by activating him from the 60-day IL.

But the White Sox are running out of excuses. If they don't take action soon, they could watch an opportunity to make the postseason slip through their fingers. For an organization that has reached the postseason just seven times in the last 65 years, that's unacceptable.

Expectations should change as circumstances change. The White Sox currently have 18 regular season games remaining, a 2.0-game lead in the AL Central, and a 1.5-game advantage over Houston for the No. 2 seed in the American League.

That means it's go time. It's all hands on deck.

So far, the White Sox haven't shown the necessary sense of urgency when it comes to a pitcher like Drew Thorpe. The next time he takes the mound, it should be in Chicago for the White Sox.