2008 State of the Sox

April 18: White Sox 9, Rays 2

After a bitter defeat, a win in which the White Sox thoroughly outclassed their opponent cleanses in the palette in quite a refreshing manner, hmm?

Foppish ledes aside, that's basically the storyline.  The Sox were better in just about all facets in the game, and after a shaky start, that's the way things played out.  As an added bonus, they actually beat up a pitcher they'd never faced before in Jeff Niemann.

Javier Vazquez pitched around a curious second inning that featured Mike DiFelice leaning into a strike for a free base, and the Sox botching a rundown when Pablo Ozuna got rid of the ball too quickly, and Orlando Cabrera didn't run hard enough to cover third base.  At least they didn't give up the base ahead.

Anyway, Vazquez got former Piranha Jason Bartlett to ground into a 6-4-3 double play, and it was smooth sailing after that, starting with a defensive lapse on the Rays' part.

Juan Uribe grounded to third, but Evan Longoria's throw was high and pulled Carlos Pena off the bag.  Nick Swisher walked (the first of three), and after an Orlando Cabrera popup, Jim Thome hit the catwalk with a mammoth homer, the 511th of his career that seemed to travel 511 feet, to give the Sox a 3-0 lead.  It was the second time he hit the roof of the Tropicana Dome in the at-bat, as a foul ball deflected off another ring into the seats.

Paul Konerko then went to left field to give the Sox back-to-back homers for the second straight game.

They piled on four more runs in the fourth (the big-inning trend continues) with a Uribe RBI double inside the left-field line, a Cabrera RBI single up the middle, a bases-loaded HBP from Konerko on an 0-2 count and a Jermaine Dye sacrifice fly.

Uribe ran hard all day and was rewarded with an RBI infield single in the fifth for his first multi-hit game of the year.

Record: 10-6 | Box score | Play-by-play