John Danks Yells At Jose Bautista, Falls To 0-8 For Season

Sunday afternoon in Toronto, there was a bit of player-vs.-player profanity. It happened in the bottom of the fourth inning. Chicago White Sox starter John Danks, already losing 9-2 and having just given up a home run, retired Best Hitter on the Planet Jose Bautista on a fastball, which Bautista popped up but apparently thought he should have popped out of the ballpark. He showed his frustration, which rankled Danks. Mark Gonzales:

“I told him to run the bases,” Danks said. “He was out there acting like a (bleeping) clown. He’s a good player. He’s had a great 1 ½ years. No doubt, he’s one of the best hitters in the league. But he’s out there acting like he’s Babe Ruth. That’s horse(bleep), totally. I just told him to run the base and quit acting like a clown.

”He ran haflway down the line and spiked the bat. I get it. He’s mad at himself. I threw him a 3-1 fastball that he missed. Then I threw him another heater. He’s a good hitter. He’s had a great couple years, but he’s not that good to act like he needs to hit every ball out of the park.

“That’s just the way I feel. I have pride. I really do. I’ve had a (lousy) year, but I have pride. I’m not going to let him show me up. I just told him to run the bases and quit acting like a clown.”

Danks yelled at Bautista, which is perfectly understandable, considering his frustration with the game and, one suspects, his entire season. Bautista yelled back at Danks, which is perfectly understandable, considering that Danks yelled at him. Heat of the moment, plenty of testosterone, adrenaline, and the various other substances that power world-class professional athletes.

The real story here is John Danks and his 0-8 record. According to Gonzales, Danks is the first White Sox starter to open a season 0-8 since Eddie Smith opened with 10 straight losses in 1942.

Smith, by the way, is one of the all-time hard-luck pitchers. Thanks to spending almost his entire career with two moribund franchises -- the Athletics and the White Sox -- Smith finished his career 73-113 despite a 3.82 ERA that was significantly better than league average. In fact, among all major-league starters with at least 150 decisions and an adjusted ERA (ERA+) better than average, Eddie Smith’s .392 career winning percentage is the lowest.

For Danks, the bad news is that Smith finished that 1942 season with 20 losses. There’s not much good news, except that Smith did win seven games.

Actually, there’s other good news ... Danks doesn’t seem to be a fundamentally different pitcher today. He still seems to be the same pitcher who went 40-31 with a 3.61 ERA from 2008 through ‘10. He’s throwing the same pitches, and is walking the same number of batters. His strikeouts are down slightly, which I suppose is a small red flag. But otherwise everything seems to be roughly the same.

Despite their odd circumstance of having six worthy starting pitchers on hand -- and at the moment, in the rotation -- the 2010 White Sox should probably do with John Danks what the 1942 White Sox did with Unlucky Eddie Smith: Just keep running him out there, every five or six days.