Bad Day in the Windy City

May 21st, 2009 is probably a day that the Chicago White Sox and their fans wish they could have back. Initially the day started out promising, with news coming out of San Diego that the Sox were in negotiations to acquire 2007 Cy Young winner Jake Peavy. The day looked even brighter when details of the trade started coming to light. The White Sox would hang on to their top prospect, SS Gordon Beckham, and center the deal around Aaron Poreda. Poreda, Chicago's 2007 1st round pick, is no slouch of a prospect, but he doesn't really profile as a star either. Any deal that centered around him and fellow pitching prospect Clayton Richard seemed like a win for the White Sox. The day began to take a turn as the White Sox started their afternoon game against the Minnesota Twins.

Chicago took the first two games of the series but couldn't complete the sweep. Instead the Twins embarrassed the White Sox with a 20-1 shellacking. It was by far the White Sox worse loss of the season, and it was the most runs the Sox had given up in almost two years. The Twins chased Chicago's starter Bartolo Colon after two innings. The news got worse for Chicago's starting rotation later in the afternoon. As their potential savior Jake Peavy exercised the no trade clause in his contract, and declined the move to Chicago. 

After today the White Sox are now 6.5 games out of first place in the A.L. Central, and still without their ace. They rank 24th in the league in ERA, and need to add some pitching if they are to contend in the Central. Now Chicago will have to go back to the drawing board to find a deal to add a starter. If the White Sox don't start improving soon they may become sellers rather than buyers at this year's trade deadline.

*Major credit goes to MLB Trade Rumors for their coverage of this potential deal from start to finish.