2008 State of the Sox

July 2: White Sox 6, Indians 5 (10 innings)

Watching the White Sox bullpen the last two nights reminds me of the Family Guy episode where Death gets injured and Peter discovers he can't die.

Or, in this case, giving up a late-inning homer doesn't mean the end of the game.  One night after Matt Thornton nearly gave up a game-winning homer to Casey Blake in the 10th (it ended up merely being brief-lead-providing), Scott Linebrink decided to serve up another untimely gopher ball to Grady Sizemore that tied the game at 5.

It was the first of two curious decisions by Ozzie Guillen, both of which may have been altered by injury.  Boone Logan, who owns Sizemore to the tune of 0-for-9 with 4 K's, didn't get the call in the ninth or the 10th, when lefty Shin-Soo Choo led off.

Then again, he went to Adam Russell.  Though his head brushed the clouds and shook some rain loose, he managed to keep it together for a 1-2-3 inning.

A.J. Pierzynski's homer -- his second of the game -- would give him his second win in as many nights.  He scored the Sox's first run with a blast into right field off a C.C. Sabathia first pitch, and finished it with one to left on Masa Kobayashi's first pitch.

It capped off a successful night by the offense, who roughed up C.C. Sabathia early and late, providing relatively quick answers every time Cleveland threatened to build momentum.

Sure, they used the longball, as Pierzynski and Jermaine Dye homered in the first.  But they also found other ways to get runs across the plate.

None of them involved the bunt directly, but twice the Sox scored after botched sacrifice bunt attempts by Nick Swisher.  In the second, Swisher tried to bunt Pablo Ozuna to third with no outs, only to poke it foul.  He then swung away, and ended up with a shattered-bat single over Jhonny Peralta to give the Sox a 3-2 lead.

In the seventh, Swisher once again botched a bunt with Ozuna on second (after a Casey Blake error), except this time he hit it twice with his bat, and was therefore out.  His teammates picked him up.

After Alexei Ramirez reached with an infield single -- which was really another error by Blake, who dropped a hard liner -- Brian Anderson of all people drove them both in with a double off Sabathia to the left-center gap for a 5-4 lead.

Sizemore would foil it, and that was the story all evening.  The Cleveland center fielder scored four of the Indians' five runs, including the first of the game.  He reached on an infield single, advanced to second and scored two singles later.  He also reached on a leadoff walk, stole second and scored, and then left Jose Contreras with a bad taste in his mouth by homering with two outs in the Count's final inning of work.

Sizemore aside, Contreras pitched pretty well -- six innings, three earned runs.  Ozuna let a ball handcuff him and led to one unearned run, and Dye played a double into a triple.  Contreras pitched around that one, though, walking a tightrope with a groundout, walk, flyout and strikeout to end the inning.

Ultimately, There's not much room to complain.  Sabathia started, Sizemore brought his best, and the Sox still came away with the win and the sweep.  Everybody has to feel pretty good about this one.

Record: 49-35 | Box score | Play-by-play