Welcome Back Jose Contreras

Even though this White Sox season doesn't resemble the 2005 season in any way save for a few remaining players, Hawk Harrelson has become quite fond of saying "shades of 05" during games.

"Paul Konerko homered, just like that one time he did it in 2005!"

Now it's hard to blame Hawk for getting confused.  After all, the Sox did bring back Scott Podsednik earlier this season, signing him to a minor-league deal after picking him up off of the Colorado Rockies scrap heap.  Amazingly enough, Pods has not only earned a spot on the Sox roster again but over the last few weeks he may be the best offensive player the team has had.

Then on Monday the White Sox announced they were hoping to catch lightning in a bottle twice, and signed Freddy Garcia to a minor-league deal as well.  It seems that Kenny Williams and the boys are convinced that if they bring in every washed up player from that team then they can do nothing but return to the World Series.

Still, something tells me that Freddy isn't going to have nearly the success that Pods has had in his return.

Garcia wasn't the only pitcher from 2005 to return on Monday night, either, as Jose Contreras returned to the bump for the Sox in the second game of their doubleheader against Detroit and was absolutely brilliant.

The last we saw Jose he was an absolute wreck.  He couldn't find the plate with his fastball if given a well-drawn map and a seeing-eye dog to walk it up there for him.  As a result, Jose went 0-5 in six starts, reaching the 7th inning only once, and had an ERA of 8.19.  So the Sox sent Jose down to the minors to work on finding his control, and if Monday night is any indication, he done found it.

Before the game started I was pretty nervous.  The Sox looked horrible in the first game and with Contreras on the mound for the nightcap, I was pretty sure we were going to get swept.

I did take some solace in the fact that Jeremy Bonderman was making his first start in over a year for the Tigers after having surgery to remove a blood clot and a rib (just like Marilyn Manson, except not for the purpose of self-fellating!).  I figured Bonderman wouldn't be very sharp, but since he hadn't pitched in over a year I feared the Sox may confuse him for a rookie they'd never seen before and been completely baffled.

Instead the Tigers were the only ones baffled.

Contreras gave up a double to Clete Thomas in the first inning, but after that he retired 21 of the next 22 hitters he saw, with Brandon Inge being the lone exception after he drew the only walk of the night from Contreras.

Jose's line on the night looked like this.

8IP 1H 0R 3K 1BB and an economical 115 pitches.

He literally looked like the guy Sox fans got used to seeing during the second half of 05 and the first half of 06.  Now I'm not saying that the Jose Contreras of old is back permanently and he's going to go on and win 14 games this season, but for one night at least, he was brilliant.

If he continues to get ahead of hitters like he did on Monday night for the rest of the season, things could start going a lot better in the second half for the Sox.

Well, if they could hit anyway.