So while Guillen admitted before Wednesday's 4-1 loss to Seattle that the Sox may indeed get a bit more preseason respect heading into 2010 -- surely more than last winter when they were all but written off by many prognosticators -- he called out his players for a season of fundamental mistakes, and laid down the gauntlet on how they plan to turn that around come next spring.

Considering the lack of situational hitting and the number of baserunning mistakes that were further on display in the loss to the Mariners, it couldn't come too soon. Not that it will help much at this point, as the loss dropped the Sox (72-74) 6½ games back of the American League Central-leading Tigers and moved the magic number until elimination -- or in this case tragic number -- to 11.

Starting pitcher Gavin Floyd left the game after three innings with a sore left hip on a night where very little went right. Guillen said Floyd had been pitching through the hip the last few weeks, but he will likely be skipped at least one start now. If the Sox fall out even further, Floyd could be shut down.

''We might get a few steps in front of a few teams, yes,'' Guillen said when asked if his team would be a favorite to win the division next season. ''Because our pitching staff, we got four guys [Jake Peavy, Floyd, Mark Buehrle and John Danks] for sure that are going to be good, and hopefully Freddy [Garcia] figures in the mix and helps us.

''We got a couple guys in the infield back, we're going to have [Alex] Rios every day. Hopefully [Carlos] Quentin has a better year than last year ... I think we're going to have a better year next year, but we got to wait and see to what point we get better.''

The Sox have already done most of their heavy lifting this season, acquiring Peavy at the trade deadline and then grabbing Rios off waivers.

Source: Chicago Sun-Times