Knock On Wood

I consider myself a very logical guy - rational, skeptical in the scientific sense, even-handed. I subscribe to Scientific American, and have for many years. I'm not religious, and faith is just about the exact opposite of logic and science (although I think it's possible for them to co-exist, such as in the belief that God created evolution). And yet occasionally - very, very occasionally - I am superstitious, and always about something sports-related. So it makes perfect sense to me that after yesterday, when I sung the praises of Neal Cotts and Matt Thornton, they would go out and, with the help of some other guys in the bullpen, blow a very winnable game. I accept responsibility for jinxing them, and will do my best to avoid doing so again in the future.

Having said that, I'm now going to break my promise and laud a couple of Soxx (the double-x means plural, remember), meaning they'll no doubt injure themselves tonight and be out for the year. Great. Anyway:

If I were to ask who the Sox' best two hitters have been over the past 15 years, I think the answers would be pretty clear. Frank Thomas is a lock, and I will not even entertain any arguments to the contrary. He's the best Sock hitter ever, and not by a small margin, so clearly he wins for the much shorter time-frame in question as well. And the second best hitter, with all apologies to Paul Konerko (and a mini apology to Albert Belle's monster 1998), was Magglio Ordonez. It was very easy to forget about Maggs last year, what with him being injured and the Sox winning the World Series and all (note: roughly seven months later, it still feels good to type that), but from 2000 to 2003 (and to a lesser extent in 1999) he was one of the premier right fielders in the game. He was also absurdly consistent; check out these batting lines:

Year	AVG	OBP	SLG	HR	RBI	R	H
1999	301	349	510	30	117	100	188
2000	315	371	546	32	126	102	185
2001	305	382	533	31	113	97	181
2002	320	381	597	38	135	116	189
2003	317	380	546	29	99	95	192

With the exception of 1999, when his rate stats showed him to be more on the ascent to stardom than actually there, and 2002, when he was a viable MVP candidate, Maggs hit like a very predictable machine during that span. In my opinion, it's very clear that he and Frank were the cream of the Sox crop.

Both ex-Sox sluggers are experiencing a resurgence these days. Magglio, healthy for the first time since 2003, is hitting .318/.363/.551 with 12 homers and 39 RBI for the (yikes) first-place Tigers. And although Thomas' batting average this season is still just a minute .229, he's been on a hot streak ever since he came to Chicago to play the Sox: in those 11 games, he's hitting .400/.523/.857 with five homers and nine RBI. For the season, his on-base and slugging percentages of .353 and .484 are well above average.

I bring this up because so far this season, the Sox' two best hitters - Jermaine Dye and Jim Thome - are Ordonez' and Thomas' respective replacements. In fact, Dye and Thome haven't just been the Sox' best hitters - they've been the American League's best hitters. After last night's game (in which Dye hit two homers and drove in five runs, and Thome went 1-for-3 with a walk and three RBI), they had the two highest OPSes of anyone not named Albert Poo-Holes. Along with Konerko, they currently form the best 1-2-3 punch in the majors; here are the top trios, ranked by average OPS:

Team		Players		Average OPS
White Sox		Thome-Dye-Konerko		1037
Blue Jays		Rios-Wells-Glaus		1000
Indians		Hafner-Blake-Broussard		993
Cardinals		Pujols-Rolen-Eckstein		987
Yankees		Giambi-Rodriguez-Posada		977
Red Sox		Ramirez-Lowell-Youkilis		957
Rockies		Hawpe-Holliday-Atkins		956
Phillies		Howard-Abreu-Burrell		951
Pirates		Bay-Sanchez-Wilson		931
Mets		Beltran-Wright-Delgado		924
A's		Swisher-Chavez-Thomas		922
Astros		Ensberg-Berkman-Biggio		921
Marlins		Cabrera-Ramirez-Uggla		916
Brewers		Lee-Hall-Fielder		913
Braves		McCann-Jones-Jones		912
Tigers		Shelton-Ordonez-Guillen		910

The Sox' top-heavy offensive formula has made up for some of the deficiencies at the bottom of the batting order (such as Uribe's .208/.243/.333 and Anderson's .164/.271/.291), although it certainly helps to have a number of other guys (Pods, Pierzynski, Mackowiak, Iguchi) with good on-base percentages, and another (Crede) who slugs pretty well.