Perhaps Mark Buehrle really is okay, and perhaps the Chicago White Sox wouldn’t dare lie about the state of their de facto ace.

But say for a second Buehrle is hurt. Say he has some kind of muscle soreness that costs him a start or two, and that the Sox have to move past him in the rotation for the first half of the first month of the season. The Good Guys come out of the gate with but two days off in the first two weeks, meaning the four-man rotation isn’t a likely possibility to work for very long. Bartolo Colon, per the above Sun-Times report, still won’t be ready in time for the start of the season so who gets the spot start?

With Clayton Richard the apparent winner of the race for the fifth spot in the rotation, it’s on to one of plans L, J or A, but with one-pitch prospect Aaron Poreda getting lit up this spring and Lance Broadway destined for the bullpen, 35th Street endorses Jack Egbert for the emergency starts.

And you will ask: Why Egbert?

For one thing he’s having a fine spring, but for another he is still a complete unknown, not just to the Sox but to the Twins, Royals, Tigers and Rays, all of whom the Sox face to kick off the season and none of whom yet have a book on the new number 62. Will he be great? Terrible? Somewhere in between? It doesn’t matter, and no one knows, and that is about as fine a set of options as a team could want from its fallback starter.

And hey, you know, really what’s the worst that can happen? The Twins are helpless without Joe Mauer, the Tigers have already given up on the season and the Royals, well, you know, they’re still the Royals. And the Rays? Hey, if they can take even one of four from the Rays then we know the Good Guys haven’t lost a step. And if they can manage to tread water without their one reliable starter?

That, friends, is gravy.

Pure, delicious gravy.