The White Sox played two games in Tucson today --
against Oakland at Tucson Electric Park, and
against Colorado at Hi Corbett Field. They won the former, lost the latter. Guess which one I went to?
After losing a 15-11 slugfest to the Rockies, my spring training record fell to 0-6.
The bright spot is that I got to see Mark Buehrle pitch, meaning I've seen all eight possibilities for the rotation over the five days I've been here. His line -- 4 IP, 6 ER, 6 H, 2 BB, 4 K -- wasn't as ugly as it looked.
Buehrle almost got a double play ball from Kazuo Matsui to end the inning, but Willy Taveras knocked out Alex Cintron's legs on the double play relay toss to extend the inning. After a walk, Ryan Spilborghs homered to tie the game at 4.
John Mabry had the other big shot off Buehrle, a two-run job in the fourth.
There are a couple reasons why I wasn't discouraged by his outing. One is that his fastball sizzled from where I sat, which was three rows up about 30 feet down the first-base line. Right-handed hitters had a hard time getting around on his inside fastballs, and it set up his offspeed stuff nicely for a couple of backwards K's. Hi Corbett doesn't have any visible radar guns, so I'm going off what I saw. At this point in the season, I'd rather his problems be location-based rather than velocity-based.
I'll tell you what was ugly -- Mike MacDougal's day. After
looking so dominant two days ago, MacDougal experienced a meltdown today. He walked the first guy he faced entering the fifth inning, and then went triple-double-single-single-walk to allow the Rockies to take the lead. But when he finally appeared to right himself by getting a chopper back to the mound with the bases loaded, instead of zipping it back to Toby Hall for a 1-2-3 double play, he lobbed it short-armed a few feet over Hall's head, allowing two more runs to score.
Boone Logan came on after MacDougal got his first out via a strikeout and looked tough in his 2-1/3-inning outing. He didn't allow any more runs to score in the fifth, pitched around a Josh Fields error (it was a tough play -- funky spin off a shattered bat) starting off the sixth. In the seventh, Rob Mackowiak got Logan in and out of trouble when he horribly misjudged a dive in left field, giving Omar Quintanilla a chance for an inside-the-park homer. However, Mackowiak hit the cutoff man, and the throw beat Quintanilla just in time for Donny Lucy to tag him out.
Nick Masset finished the game in the loosest sense of the word, giving up all four of his runs with two outs in the ninth.
It's a shame the pitchers were so erratic, because this was the first time I actually saw a legitimate offense, and it was keyed by Eduardo Perez, who had an interesting day. He scored the Sox's first run when he singled, stole second (!!) and scored on Darin Erstad's two-out double. Perez also added two homers, one off righty Jason Hirsh with two outs, and the other in the ninth off lefty Tom Martin.
Rob Mackowiak had a two-out, two-run double off Denny Bautista, Jim Thome also launched a two-run shot and Andy Gonzalez hit his first homer of the spring. Alex Cintron was the only Sox starter to not reach base.
Thomas Collaro impressed me considerably for a guy I'd never heard of. He entered the game in the first inning after Luis Terrero fouled a ball off the inside of his knee, and turned an 0-1 count into a walk after fouling off a few pitches. He had two other hits before flying out to right. Not bad for a split-squad guy.
Photos may be coming later today, but videos will wait until tomorrow, since I have an early flight to catch.