The main issue this week for SSS duty geezer Leigh Allan and his son and west coast correspondent, Will, is starting pitching for the playoffs, starting with extreme doubt the White Sox can survive Houston without a healthy Carlos Rodón, who has been by far the best starter versus the Astros this season. Lucas Giolito has also been good, but no one else has even been close to adequate, so fears abound. A look at starters’ performances against Houston this season is scary. So is looking at Lance Lynn against them in recent years. That led to discussion of the overuse of starters, especially Rodón — who had pitched only 40 innings in the past two years — by our HOFBP. And that led to the incredible inefficiency of Sox starters, by far the worst in MLB in pitches per inning. Will wants to shut down the starters the rest of the regular season. Leigh thinks that’s overkill. Before getting into starting pitching, or even delving into the poor White Sox record in the second half (below .500!) and terrible record in one-run games (HOFBP?), the two talk about what Jason and Stoney have been talking about, since the TV casters have seemingly dropped their concern about the The Three True Outcomes destroying baseball and started stressing how important home runs and strikeouts are. Go figure. And that still left time to bemoan the horrible deadline decisions by Rick Hahn. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices