2007 State of the Sox

September 8: White Sox 8, Twins 7

Any chance Ron Gardenhire will come up with a catchy and extremely marketable nickname for the White Sox after a second straight come-from-behind victory?

Probably not, but it's a shame we're only seeing Ozzie Guillen and Kenny Williams' vision coming to life well after they played themselves far out of contention. They wanted their team to be able to scratch together victories like the Twins, and now they're getting it.

Jim Thome had another big day at the plate, hitting his 497th homer in the first and adding a go-ahead single through the shift in the seventh.  When they pitched around him in the fifth, Paul Konerko, who went back-to-back with Thome, made them pay with a two-run single.  That was the middle-of-the-order combo that should've at least kept the Sox around .500, if not near the top of the AL Central.

A pinch-hitting A.J. Pierzynski took the first pitch he saw from Carmen Cali and swatted it into the Bullpen Sports Bar for a game-tying two-run homer.  That was fitting, since his big St. Stanislaus Day homer happened exactly one year to this date.

And while Jose Contreras didn't live up to preseason expectations, the bullpen picked him up big time.  Mike Myers threw two scoreless inning for a second day in a row, Mike MacDougal retired the only two batters he faced, and Matt Thornton went four up, four down (including strikeouts of the first three) for his second save of the year.

Only Contreras was missing from the equation, and it was mainly because he caught way too much of the plate throughout the day.  It was pretty much of the opposite of his last start, in which he walked five but didn't give the Indians anything to turn on.  Today, he only walked one, but the Twins picked him apart.

Alex Cintron aided and abetted Minnesota's cause once again, as he started off the third inning by throwing high and wide to first after fielding a routine grounder.  That snowballed into a four-run inning, the day after his throwing error led to a six-run inning.

Record: 61-81 | Box score | Play-by-play