2008 State of the Sox

April 29: Twins 3, White Sox 1

Five ugly aspects of a boring loss:

No. 5. Watching Boof Bonser completely dismantle the Sox by getting ahead in the count.  Bonser faced 27 batters over seven innings, and only fell behind 2-0 to three of them -- and one was Juan Uribe.  He had all his pitches working, and the Sox helped him out plenty as well.

Joe Crede tattooed one deep into the left field seats, and outside of that and a Thome double off the baggie fence in right, there weren't a lot of hard-hit balls.

No. 4. Watching Jermaine Dye do anything.  Dye returned to the lineup after missing a few games with a groin injury.  He went 0-for-4 with two strikeouts, and both Ks were with runners in scoring position.  The first was on a fastball in the dirt, and the second was on a 55-foot curveball for a three-pitch strikeout.

He made a couple of nice sliding catches, the second one preventing a run, but even those weren't graceful.

No. 3. Fourth-inning defense behind Gavin Floyd.  Floyd allowed a cheap double to Michael Cuddyer and an authentic homer to Jason Kubel to start out the fourth. 

But then Orlando Cabrera let a Delmon Young chopper play him, and he threw wide of the bag (it was ruled an infield single).  Young stole second, and A.J. Pierzynski airmailed the throw into center, allowing Young to reach third.  He'd score on Mike Lamb's sacrifice fly, and it probably should've been an unearned run.  Floyd pitched well otherwise.

No. 2.  Watching Floyd and Co. hold runners.  A perfect throw may have gotten Young on the aforementioned steal, but he didn't have a shot on Young's steal in the second, or Nick Punto's steal in the third.  Punto also had second stolen on Ehren Wassermann, but Carlos Gomez didn't pull off the bunt and ended up fouling it off.

No. 1.  Nick Swisher on the basepaths.  With Bonser out of the game in the eighth inning, Swisher tried to start something off Pat Neshek, looping a single to left.  After a Cabrera strikeout, Jim Thome hit a deep flyball to left that Young caught on the warning track.

For some reason, Swisher was about 15 feet past second when the ball was caught, and Young, possessing one of baseball's strongest outfield arms, hit the cutoff man with a 300-foot throw to start a 7-4-3 double play.  There was no reason for Swisher to be past second, because he wasn't the tying run.

If there was any good news, it was two scoreless innings out of the bullpen by Wassermann and Boone Logan.  The Baron got three groundballs (one infield single), and Logan picked him up by retiring Joe Mauer.

Record: 14-11 | Box score | Play-by-play