posted on Saturday, April 28, 2007 11:13 PM
by
Jim
April 28: Angels 3, White Sox 0
I don't know why the Sox even bothered playing this game. Not because of a lack of effort, but because the result was merely an extension of trends that could've been easily predicted. Here, you had:
- Jon Garland and his propensity to give up runs early on in the game.
- The Sox facing a starter they'd never seen before.
It worked out just like you thought it would. The game was in effect over by the fifth pitch, when Gary Matthews Jr. homered off Garland on a 2-2 count leading off the game. The Angels added a couple more thanks to a fluke double off the fists of Casey Kotchman, and a single through the box that Garland would usually grab eight out of 10 times.
Garland would settle down to retire 16 of 17 at one point, and ended up throwing seven solid innings. He has yet to win a game this year, though his ERA is sub-4.00. Last year, he was 2-1 after four starts despite a 7.30 ERA.
Meanwhile, in the tradition of J.P. Howell and Kason Gabbard, Jered Weaver simply stumped the Sox offense. The leadoff man reached base only twice in nine innings, and incidentally, those were the two frames in which the Sox came closest to scoring, stranding a runner on third each time. Paul Konerko led off the fourth with a single, but was held up at third when Joe Crede singled sharply to Vladimir Guerrero with two outs. Razor Shines made the right call, though given the all-too forseeable outcome of the game, I was curious about how far Konerko would've been thrown out by. At the time,
this came to mind.
I suppose the only real highlight of the game came in the ninth inning, when the Sox made three fantastic plays on defense in a row. Rob Mackowiak recorded the first out with a well-timed sprinting leap, Nick Masset quickly fielded a Guerrero swinging bunt for the second out, and Juan Uribe made an awesome throw from deep in the hole, capped off by a Konerko scoop that needed some fancy backpedaling.
Record: 12-10 |
Box score |
Play-by-play