One thing that’s hard to miss is that lately, Jay Mariotti is only putting down the doughnut to write columns on days after Sox losses. Another thing that’s hard to miss is how busy Jay has been lately. In today’s effort, Jay opines that the Sox might not win another game the rest of the way.

This is ludicrous, wishful thinking from Jay who has personal vendetta’s against the Sox TV play-by-play hack guy, a Sox PR wonk, and judging by his work on Around the Horn, anybody who actually watches television.

The Sox have dropped two more games in Detroit than they figured they would, especially since the Tigers quit and went home about a month ago. Jayson Stark of ESPN.com and the Museum of Guys Who Actually Looked Better With Mustaches fame notes that the Tigers went two months between instances when they won more than one game in a row against anything resembling a playoff contender. The last time they did it? Yeah, it was against the White Sox.

But last night, while the Sox were scaring and boring their fan(s) to death, the Indians were losing to the great Scott Kazmir as Julio Lugo took time away from his hobby of bouncing his wife off the hood of his car to hit a three-run homer. The Red Sox were being reminded again that even when he’s good it’s hard to like Curt Schilling and when he’s going bad, there’s no reason too. And the Yankees were giving up more touchdowns to the Orioles than the Ravens can score in a month.

Sox fans were all happy about how everybody lost, which means they win! Huh? OK, I know what they mean. Mariotti has suggested that if the Sox don’t get on some sort of roll down the stretch (which is impossible given that even if they win the division they’re going to take their lumps at The Jake this weekend) that they should just skip the playoffs entirely, like the 1998 Cubs did.

Wait, you mean the Cubs actually showed up in that series? I have it on tape somewhere, I’m pretty sure they didn’t.

Joe Crede has left the Sox for at least a couple of days while his wife is suffering from complications in her pregnancy. Crede’s not exactly Mike Schmidt, but he’s the closest thing the Sox have had to an offense the last two weeks, so his absence is huge. Future Hall of Famer Pablo Ozuna played third yesterday, giving the Sox three second basemen in their infield. Ahh, you can just taste the pennant, can’t you?

The headline on the Sox web site for the 3-2 loss was, “Sox rally late but fall to Tigers.” Wait, you mean they rallied from a 3-1 deficit to lose 3-2? That is inspirational.

Norman Bates Bruce Levine was on ESPN Radio this morning and he was asked, point blank, “If the Sox have to win two of three in Cleveland to get into the playoffs, can they do it?”

His answer was yes, which is, of course, wrong.

I am not going to go out on a limb and say something delusional like Mariotti that the Sox won’t win another game this season.

I will, however, boldy predict that the Indians will not lose again until the playoffs. That’s one turn around the Indians’ rotation starting tonight with Cliff Lee and ending on Sunday with Scott Elarton who will just be glad he’s not pitching against Tampa Bay again. If there’s a game on Monday, Sabathia will start it and win it.

See, my prediction is just as meaningless as Jay’s, but it’s a positive one! See, I’m talking about a team playing well and winning, not going into the toilet like Jay’s. This isn’t a Mike Ditka rant about Donnell Woolford in the locker room after a gut-wrenching loss to Washington in 1989. Nah! This is me being Mr. Happy.

Even if Mr. Happy, just predicted at least a three game losing streak for the Sox to end the year.

How beat down is Hawk Harrelson? Last night with runners on first and second and two outs in the ninth, Konerko hit a clean single to left. Hawk thought it was going to be fielded by Carlos Guillen who would then have about 72 seconds to throw to first to get Konerko and end the game. Hawk didn’t even get excited. I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that if the Indians somehow knock the Sox out of the playoffs altogether on Sunday or Monday that Hawk will throw himself out of a Jacobs Field pressbox window.

Mariotti did have one interesting thing in his column today. I mean, really, I know first hand how irrestible it is to pile on the impending doom of Sox fans, but Jay is just joylessly hacking them to bits. However, he made a vague reference in today’s column to:

This is about an organization whose public-relations director dips into amateurland when he uses the team’s Web site to criticize, yep, media people.

What was he talking about? Well, I went to the Sox web site today to find out. And it took some hunting.

Some guy named Scott Reifert who claims to be the Sox vice president of communications has one of those always insipid MLBlogs. But you have to wade through a lot of very boring stuff to find what Jay was obsessing about.

Sell Out

Jay Mariotti, a long-time and fervent pro-White Sox columnist in the Chicago Sun-Times, took a rest break in the middle of his column today to accuse the team of “fibbing” by calling last night’s game a sell out when our attendance was 36,543 (capacity is 40,615).

Jay apparently didn’t check the facts before the accusation, but the explanation is this: before the season starts, several games are selected in advance as exchange dates for season ticket holders. This is a perk for making an 81-game commitment to the team. STH can exchange unused tickets for tickets to one of these pre-selected games. Therefore, the tickets have already been sold once. The exchange tickets are comp. Last night was one of those games, obviously a pretty attractive one. So, we sold every available seat for last night’s game (i.e. a “sell-out”) but had several thousand “comp” tickets distrubuted as part of this program to help our season ticket holders. That’s the explanation, but for all those budding journalists at home, it is always more important to first accuse an organization in print of lying. Then ask for an explanation.

Let me get this straight. If you buy a full season ticket package (Reifert refers to the 81-game committment) you can trade in some of your tickets and get tickets to some selected other games. Why would you want that? Hey, I’ve got tickets for a Sox-Twins game, how about I trade in some tickets to get more for that game! Hot damn! What a perk.

But that’s not the point. I’m sure if you have two season tickets you’d like to have four for an occasional game. OK, I get it. What the point is, is that the Sox announced a “sell out” crowd of 36,543 when their capacity is listed at 40,615.

There were empty seats all over the park, and they didn’t sell all of the seats. Just because there were tickets set aside for season ticket holders, who obviously didn’t use them doesn’t make it a sell out. Because, I’ll bet if you walked up to the gate before the game started they’d have sold you any number of those unclaimed “comp” tickets they had on hand.

Sounds like an argument between Reifert and Mariotti would only help narrow down the search for the “most paranoid assbag” in Chicago.