Well, April sure didn’t go as planned. If I were a buffet table anywhere inside US Cellular Field, I’d watch my back anytime Ken Williams was in the building.

The fact that it’s “only” April only highlights just how bad the Sox have been. It’s hard to stray so far afield (9 games below .500, 10 games out of first place) after less than 30 games, when most teams are just hovering around .500. It’s going to take an extended run just to get the Sox back to .500, a mark from which they’d still need a significant hot steak to get into real contention. Sadly, nothing in White Sox (recent) history suggests they can come back to win the AL Central. In order to get this job done, some old dogs are going to have to learn new tricks.

If it’s any consolation, at least the Sox aren’t struggling alone in the AL Central. As of this morning, the Sox, Twins and Tigers have combined to lose 17 consecutive games, which is just asinine. Seriously, re-read that sentence. The three best teams in the division (on paper) have somehow managed to lose 17 baseball games in a row.

Looking back at the 5 keys to the season I outlined on Opening Day, it’s obvious the Sox are not making the grade. They’ve succeeded in exactly one area, fallen well short in three others, and may not even get to test out the fifth. Here’s an update, one month in.

1. Gordon Beckham. Yikes. It looked for a week or so like Beckham had put his issue-plagued 2010 behind him, but since April 10 the guy I thought was the catalyst for the offense is hitting .102 and has been demoted out of the top of the line up.  It’s no coincidence that the Sox slide on offense coincided with Beckham’s slump. Consider:

April 1 thru 10:

• Beckham: .333 AVG, 2 HRs, 3 doubles.
• Team: 6.89 RPG, 6-3 record.

April 15 thru May 1:

• Beckham: .102 AVG, 0 HRs, 1 double .
• Team 2.55 RPG, 4-16 record.

The Sox line up, as it has for the better part of the decade, breaks down into two distinct categories of hitters: 1. slow-footed, streaky sluggers and 2. scrappy, “grinder” speedsters with low OBP potential. Beckham is the one guy who seemed poised to transcend that dichotomy and become a well-rounded good hitter that could spark the top of the line up. The most frustrating part of Beckham’s struggles, both in 2010 and here in 2011 so far, is his bad plate discipline: lots of Ks, no walks.

When he came up Beckham was a line drive hitter with a quick bat who would take walks. His cumulative OBP across two minor league seasons was .375, and he held down a .347 mark as a rookie in the big league in 2009. Right now he looks like a guy with a slow bat who is striking out a ton, making lazy outs when he does put the ball in play and not taking walks. Basically, he became White Sox-ized.

His Fangraph page stats tell it all. His infield flyball and overall flyball rates are at a career high, and he’s swinging at more pitches out of the strike zone than ever. That is not a recipe for success. I never felt Beckham was a good fit in the 2-hole, a spot Ozzie Guillen treats with NL pitcher-like at bats. But the Sox are desperate for OBP, especially at the top of the order, and the Juan Pierre-Beckham tandem has failed to ignite the offense.
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After a slow start last season, Beckham followed a brief benching with a torrid second half. Maybe he needs to be benched or demoted for a spell again in 2011 to right the ship, because April further reinforced Beckham’s importance as the catalyst of the Sox offense.

2. The health/mere competency of Jake Peavy. If we can get poetic license and liberally transport this point to mean the efficiency/competency of a mediocre 5th starter, and not Peavy in specific, than this has been one of the brightest spots for the Sox in April. I was no fan of Phil Humber, and I still expect his April success to end up being a mirage, bu there’s no denying the competency he’s brought to the mound every fifth day. His brilliant start in Yankee Stadium alone would be enough to call him a success. Overall, he is 2-3 with a 3.06 ERA in 5 starts.

Humber’s stuff has been better than advertised, though his command could get him in trouble. If he can keep a grip on his command, he may hang around the rotation for a while longer and force Ozzie Guillen to consider bullpening the struggling Edwin Jackson, and not Humber, for a while if and when Peavy gets back. Even if Humber does go into the toilet in May, he gave the Sox all they could ask for in April, and put the onus on Peavy to perform to those standards in the summer months (if Peavy makes it that long).

3. Getting off to a hot start. Yeah… fail. It looked good for those first 10 days though. Since Hawk’s uber-jinxing “It’s aaahhhlll gooood” call April 13 vs. Oakland, the Sox are 3-15.

4. An un-stubborn manager. I’ve been very disappointed with Ozzie Guillen’s managing this season, but he really hasn’t done things much differently than any other season. It’s common knowledge that I hate the excessive bunting which, combined with ridiculous baserunning decisions/proficiency, has robbed the Sox of any offensive momentum and forced them to work with less outs than the rest of the American League.

So when I say “managing”, I don’t mean “bring in pitcher X to face batter Y.” Every manager in professional baseball is going to get crap for their match up decisions and handling of a pitching staff at one point or another. And honestly, I think Ozzie continues to do a good job in that regard. I generally like the way he handles his starters and bullpen- the Matt Thornton bullpen implosion of the first week isn’t Ozzie’s fault.

However Ozzie’s handing of the offense has been so bad that it just about justifies his dismissal as manager at this point, especially with yet another underachieving, high-priced team. I don’t think he has a grasp on how to manage an American League offense in 2011, and it sucks all the mojo right out of the team. Add in yet another Twitter-gate and the fact the team seems unready or under-prepared on the field, and I hate it say it, but it is starting to feel like Ozzie is more of a distraction to the Sox than anything else.

Ken Rosenthal recently wondered what the Sox would be like without Guillen:

The real issue is this: Several rival executives think the White Sox would be better without Guillen, calling him “an emotional roller-coaster” and saying the team would benefit from more stable leadership.

I am beginning to wonder the same.

5. An All In Owner. We may not even get to this one. If the Sox continue to struggle, they will be more likely to subtract from their team than to add. If the Sox somehow do climb their way back to contention, attendance has been horrific, which doesn’t portend to any big mid-season acquisitions. Since the All Star break in 2009, Ken Willimas has always responded to uncertainty with an expensive acquisition- Jake Peavy, then Alex Rios, then Edwin Jackson, then Manny Ramirez, then Adam Dunn. How will he respond to the uncertainty this time around?