posted on Tuesday, April 17, 2007 10:39 PM by Jim

April 17: Rangers 8, White Sox 1

If his last two starts are any indication, it could be a long season for Jon Garland.  Not only did he receive one run of support for the second straight start, but his defense faltered on him, too.

Jerry Lai / AP

With a 1-0 lead, a runner on and one out, Garland got a double play ball off the bat of Ian Kinsler, hit right at Joe Crede for an apparent 5-4-3 job.  But Tadahito Iguchi dropped the ball on the exchange, and though he managed to smother the ball for the forceout, it extended the inning.  Brad Wilkerson followed up with a homer, and that was, in effect, the ballgame.

Kinsler made it official with a three-run homer two innings later, his seventh of the year.  I suppose if anybody is going to kill us, I’d prefer it to be the Missouri Tiger – especially considering Sammy Sosa homered in his return to Chicago on a boneheaded 0-2 pitch by Mike MacDougal, exposing Sox fans to the kissy-tappy-hoppy BS once again.

Jim Thome had an impressive night, hitting a solo home run for his third of the year, and adding two hard-earned walks to boot.  The homer, a 410-foot drive over the CF fence, came one pitch after Thome let go of the bat on a swinging strike and hit a fan in the face.

A.J. Pierzynski also had a nice night, hitting two singles, including one where he extended an at-bat five pitches after an early 0-2 count.

No other White Sox showed up, and most of them had no idea what to do with Robinson Tejeda’s fastball.  For a guy who only allowed three hits, he wasn’t spotting the ball all that well.  Sox hitters just couldn’t turn on it – Joe Crede whiffed on a 91-m.p.h. fastball down the middle with two on before stranding them -- and they didn’t go the opposite way, either.  Alex Cintron and Rob Mackowiak looked particularly unimpressive trying to pull the ball, especially with Cintron swinging at a ball on 3-1.

Darin Erstad went 0-for-3, extending his slump to 2-for-28.  Unfortunately, one of the outs was hard-hit ball – a liner picked off the first base line by Mark Teixeira. 

Record: 5-7 | Box score | Play-by-play

Comments

# re: April 17: Rangers 8, White Sox 1

Wednesday, April 18, 2007 7:15 PM by Dad
At least you shouldn't have a tough time coming up with a candidate for your Gas Can of the Week award. What was Mike MacDougal thinking about with that 0-2 pitch selection? If it was a matter of challenging Sosa, or trying to sneak a pitch past him, the strategy backfired on him and the Sox. It will be sure to swell Sammy's head another two hat sizes.