Verily, the eight-game debacle has ended, and there is victory in the land once again! And, by golly, SSS duty geezer Leigh Allan and his son and west coast correspondent, Will, leap to the world of the pods immediately after the aforementioned victory to rejoice.

Among the rejoicees is, of course, Dylan Cease, who pitched five brilliant innings vs. the Royals and one not-so-brilliant one, demonstrating once again (a) that he completely dominates bad teams, and (b) that he still can be shaken and lose his concentration over just about anything that goes wrong, in this case a dribbler that broke up his mid-range no-hitter. Will is a big observer of Cease’s errant footwork once Dylan’s been discombobulated, as was very much the case in the streak-ending game, and makes a wavy demonstration of the unfortunate angle Cease’s toes take when disturbed.

The conversation then wends its way to other pitchers, from the morass in which Aaron Bummer finds himself (second lefty banana to Bennett Sousa, oh, shame!), the heights to which Kendall Graveman has soared, and the bizarre pitch-tipping that has become the wont of Liam Hendriks.

On to the position players, trying to ignore the sorry state of most of the lineup, which has led the White Sox to the very pits of of MLB offensively, there is instead long lament about the ignominious state of the White Sox defense, woeful as it is except for the nice addition of Reese McGuire, which leads to many a word of what could possibly be done to cope with the fact the team is comprised nowadays of an abundance of designated hitters, most of whom must, alas, play in the field. And, of course, the obligatory pining over the fact that some for whom defense is a strength remain injured.

But mostly, we celebrate the end of winter, except for the weather part, and gaze longingly forward to when the spring might arrive, both literally and figuratively.

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