Orlando Cabrera received his Gold Glove Award from Mike Scioscia -- and then carried it with him into the field.
I'm not speaking figuratively here -- I'm speaking literally. Between Cabrera and the rest of the Sox infield, they played like they were wearing the heavy metallic glove replicas mounted on the steal and wood base.
The defense treated Mark Buehrle like the bastard stepchild of the rotation once again, yet thanks to scorers generous by Little League standards, only one error was charged. The most egregious crimes were committed in the fifth:
- A Sean Rodriguez one-hopper eats up Cabrera.
- Gary Matthews Jr. hits a hard grounder up the middle at Uribe, but he can't get it out of his glove and can't throw to first either. It was the second double play Uribe failed to start.
Instead of two outs and nobody on, Buehrle had the inverse on his hands. After Vladimir Guerrero did his thing, the Angels had a 5-4 lead.
Then Joe Crede joined the party. After Buehrle struck out the first two batters in the sixth, Crede charged a Matthews grounder but threw wide. Erick Aybar hit a double off the end of his bat just inside the left-field line, and that was the end of Buehrle's day.
Ehren Wassermann did
his thing -- facing two hitters, retiring none of them, and Boone Logan gave up a pair of singles to make it a 10-4 game.
Relief work by Octavio Dotel and Matt Thornton gave the Sox a chance to get back in the game, and that they did. It started with finally getting to Chris Bootcheck, who came in with horrible peripherals (3.00 WHIP in 7 2/3 innings, namely) and promptly struck out Cabrera with the bases loaded to end a threat in the sixth.
Jermaine Dye and A.J. Pierzynski started the rally with back-to-back doubles (and A.J. brought back memories of
Geoff Blum with his stutter-foot slide into second, avoiding the swipe tag). Two batters later, Alexei Ramirez hit an infield single up the middle to score Pierzynski, cutting the lead to 10-6, but Scot Shields replacing Bootcheck and induced a 5-4-3 double play off the bat of Uribe.
The Sox got to Shields in the ninth, though, starting with a Cabrera infield single. He'd score after a wild pitch and a groundout by Pablo Ozuna, but Jim Thome restarted the rally with a walk off Shields. Scioscia called for Frankie Rodriguez, who got Paul Konerko to ground out weakly to first. Jermaine Dye kept the Sox in it with another infield single, and that brought Pierzynski to the plate.
Pierzynski had a fine day at the plate, but he was looking fastball in the at-bat. He struck out looking, as Cabrera froze him three times on offspeed pitches.
As much of a victim as Buehrle was, he couldn't be completely absolved. The Sox staked him to a 3-0 lead off Nick Adenhart when five straight batters reached. Dye singled, Pierzynski walked on four pitches, Swisher hit a flare to left and Crede followed up with an infield single incorrectly scored, since Erick Aybar should've been able to get the ball out of his mitt for a fielder's choice.
Uribe hit a shallow fly to center, and it landed at the feet of a non-diving Torii Hunter. Either Swisher got a great read or got extremely lucky, because he was running on it while Pierzynski held up, and ended up scoring two steps behind Pierzynski after A.J. saw the ball hit the ground. Cabrera, of course, ended the inning with a double play.
But Buehrle got the Angels right back in it. He walked Buehrle-killer Robb Quinlan leading off, and he went from first to third on Garrett Anderson's single to right. Two batters later, Sean Rodriguez singled, and Matthews fit a soft liner between Crede and Cabrera to cut the lead to 3-2.
Record: 18-19 |
Box score |
Play-by-play