Ozzie Guillen Suffers Usual Late-Season Breakdown

There are certain things you can expect during an unsuccessful White Sox season. Hawk Harrelson will say "dad gummit" a lot. Steve Stone will make dauntingly bleak and yet never-too-negative proclamations. And at some point, Ozzie Guillen will go on a rant. That day has finally arrived.

Saturday, Guillen went top to bottom on his lineup, sparing nobody -- least of all Alex Rios --in his indictment of the 2009 White Sox. And it was awesome. Via the Chicago Sun-Times, Guillen first launched into how bad his offense has been as a whole ...

"I mean you're not going to take anything away from the pitching staffs that we've faced, but we've been facing some pitchers this year it's like, 'Who the [expletive] is this guy? They don't even belong in the [bleeping] big leagues and they just kicked our ass.' I'm not going to lie to anybody. I know who beat us and I know who should beat us. We've faced some guys where they've called him up, faced us, and get him back to [bleeping] Double A, get the [bleep] out of here. That's how bad we've been.''

... before picking specifically on White Sox waiver claim Alex Rios, whose hitting hasn't matched his salary at all in 2009, including during his late-season stint with the White Sox:

"What have I seen from Rios? A lot of outs. The only batting ninth guy making $5 million was me. This mother [bleeper] is making $10, $12, $14 million, he ain't going to be batting ninth [in 2010]. I'm going to make sure he earns his money. But right now I have to put him there because he's struggling. Next year, if we have Rios batting ninth we're in deep [crap] once again.''

That wasn't all -- Guillen went player-by-player and discussed his frustration with the lack of hitting from each spot -- but the above were without question the best parts. What's perhaps funniest is that Guillen is hitting his head against a wall here. These players are who they are. You can't coach them out of this stuff. Some will rebound next year, but some will be even worse, and attempting to fundamentally change them or magically make them better at this stage in their careers ... well, that's just not how it works.

Which has to be incredibly frustrating for Ozzie Guillen. And as usual, what's frustrating for Ozzie is hilarious for us. Let the good times roll.