The White Sox demoted both Jon Rauch and Jim Parque following their poor performances Thursday night that assisted Mike Cameron in his four home run game. Neither move is overly surprising considering both were pitching poorly even before going down in flames on Thursday.

Rauch broke camp with the team as their #5 starter but was not needed in the rotation until April 16th. He had one relief outing in which he pitched a very unremarkable 1.1 innings with no walks, hits, or strikeouts, merely forcing two groundouts and two flyouts.

In his three starts before Thursday, he had an 8:11 K:BB while allowing 12 H and 2 HR in 13 IP. He lasted 5 innings in his April 26th start but only made it through 4 in each of his other two starts. On Thursday, he only retired one of the nine batters he faced, and though he didn't walk anyone, he allowed six hits, including the first set of back-to-back home runs to Bret Boone and Cameron.

He technically spent last season in AAA, though he only pitched 28 innings before having season-ending arthroscopic shoulder surgery. Consequently, Rauch will likely benefit from the additional AAA time and probably should have started the season in the minors despite extremely promising skills. The 23-year-old should still be a very good starter for the White Sox. He just appears to need the additional minor league development time.

Jim Parque also had shoulder surgery last season. He was slow to recover from the surgery, which caused his velocity to drop this spring, so he began the season in AAA. When the 27-year-old was called up, it was as a replacement in the pen for Lorenzo Barcelo rather than as a starter.

He pitched twice from the bullpen prior to relieving Rauch on Thursday. The first lasted 2 disastrous innings in which he allowed 5 H, 2 HR, and a walk against one strikeout. In the second outing, he only allowed one walk in one inning of work, which was better though still not great. On Thursday, Parque pitched 6 innings in which he had a 3:1 K:BB but allowed 9 H, including 4 HR (1 to Boone and 3 to Cameron).

Parque was rushed to the majors in 1998. He started 11 games in A ball in 1997 with a brief 2-start call-up to AAA. He returned to AAA to begin the 1998 season but was promoted to the majors after only 8 starts. He managed 6 K/9 in the majors in 1998 but his strikeouts have been decreasing since that year, and he was down to only 4.8 K/9 when he went down for the season last year. Meanwhile his walks and hits in the majors have always been too high. The walks are in the neighborhood of acceptability at around 4 BB/9 and appeared to be improving in 2000 as the number decreased to 3.4 BB/9. However, he typically allows more than 10 H/9.

We'll likely never know if more minor league time would have been able to help the lefty develop into a capable starting pitcher. He'd already accumulated considerable college experience, and the overall skill deficiency seems to indicate that he simply doesn't have the tools. Nonetheless, Chicago never gave him the opportunity to potentially add the missing elements. At the very least, the Sox should have noticed some time ago that he had no business in a rotation without sudden and mostly unprecedented improvement, and therefore moved him to the bullpen. Unfortunately, I doubt whether the Sox even now are ready to face the reality of the situation, so I expect them to continue to think of him as a starter.

Similar to seemingly every other Chicago pitcher, Barcelo underwent season-ending shoulder surgery last year; all three pitchers had their surgeries in either May or June. He moved to the pen in 2000 following Tommy John surgery in 1998. He has good hit and walk ratios but only borderline strikeout rates. When healthy he's an acceptable reliever, but he'll probably drop below replacement level if his skills are diminished by his injury problems.

Matt Ginter and Rocky Biddle replaced Rauch and Parque on the roster. Both will join the pen while Gary Glover will replace Rauch in the rotation. Glover likely should have started the season in the rotation. While none of his skills are extraordinary he hits the goals for most of the target ratios. The 25-year-old's only problem area has been in allowing too many home runs.

The Sox seem to have decided that Ginter is destined for relief work rather than starting. I think this decision was based primarily on his lack of a third pitch as his minor league skills were generally solid when they made the move in 2000. I believe they may have even placed a "future closer" tag on the 24-year-old. If he is to fair better than the majority of the pitchers who are given that label, he will need to at least maintain his dominance in the majors, something he has not yet been able to accomplish in his call-ups.

Chicago probably should have left him in the minors given his current AAA stat line of 5:6 K:BB with 13 H and 2 HR allowed in 10 IP. He likely should have broken camp with the team as it appears the only way he is going to progress at this point is to test his stuff against major league offenses. However after making the decision to send him to the minors for the start of the season, I would have given him at least another month to build up his confidence before bringing him up.

Biddle had shoulder surgery in late September but seems to have recovered. In two starts at AAA, he's pitched 7 innings with a 9:1 K:BB while allowing only 4 H. While he began his professional career as a reliever, he was converted to rotation work in his second season in the minors. He spent all of the last season in the majors, bouncing between starting and relief. The current plan is to have him work out of the pen, but though he will turn 26 on the 21st of May, the White Sox don't seem to know where they want him long-term.

He was called up from AA briefly in 2000 and the White Sox chose to promote him to the majors in 2001 without any AAA time. Especially considering he missed all of 1999 following Tommy John surgery, Biddle really could have used that AAA time. His BB and K numbers were both borderline in the minors and both fell to the wrong side of the line in the majors, with the walks declining more than the strikeouts. Though a season at AAA would have been better, he may have received the experience he needed last year in the majors. If he's truly healthy, he should be able to pitch well for Chicago.