2008 State of the Sox

May 4: Blue Jays 4 (Umps 3), White Sox 3

I've said before that the Sox have made excuses for Jose Contreras a little too often.  Today, it's fair to actually feel sorry for him.  Between an awful call and an awful White Sox offense, he did all he could and ended up with a complete-game loss to show for it.

Contreras pitched a heckuva game, but the game was effectively lost in the third inning.  After an Alex Rios double put runners on second and third with nobody out, Contreras got David Eckstein to hit a hard grounder to short.  Rios tried retreating to first, but in the process, ran into Orlando Cabrera, who had already fielded the ball.  More importantly, Rios' knee clearly hit Cabrera's glove.

Cabrera threw Eckstein out at first for what should've been a double play, but second base umpire and crew chief Dale Scott didn't see it and didn't confer with the umps who had a better angle.  So instead of two outs, there was one out.  Instead of Scott Rolen's liner to third ending the inning, it merely meant two outs.  And when Matt Stairs followed up with a double to center and Vernon Wells hit a broken-bat single to center (Nick Swisher made a perfect throw that A.J. Pierzynski couldn't glove on the short hop), Contreras found himself down 4-0 instead of 1-0 and in the dugout.

The Sox actually rallied back after Roy Halladay retired the Sox nine up, nine down.  Swisher started the inning with a ground rule double to right, and even though Cabrera grounded to short, Eckstein rushed the throw and pulled Lyle Overbay off the bag.

Jim Thome took advantage of it, coming up with a single to score Swisher, and Paul Konerko added an RBI double to cut the lead in half.  Jermaine Dye missed a couple hittable cutters before swinging at a ball in the dirt for strike three, but Pierzynski's grounder to second was good enough to cut the lead to 4-3.

Both offenses shut down after that.  Contreras retired the last 16 batters he faced, while the Sox didn't threaten off Halladay.  Orlando Cabrera was the only hitter for either team to reach when his hot smash to shirt deflected off Scott Rolen for a double.  There wasn't much reason for hope, because that brought Jim Thome to the plate to face lefty Jesse Carlson.

Thome struck out on three pitches.

Record: 14-15 | Box score | Play-by-play