posted on Sunday, October 05, 2008 3:20 AM
by
Jim
Elimination games are good things, right?
Well, no matter what happens later today, Kenny Williams and Co. can say the White Sox lasted longer than the Cubs this season when the crosstown series rolls around next year.
A few notes before heading into what I hope isn't the final game of 2008:
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Game 3 will be another "blackout" game, in an
attempt to capture of the magic of Game 163. Hopefully the offense will score more than one run this time out, though.
(Tangent No. 1: To the right is the picture on the Trib's White Sox section of last Monday's game against the Twins. I wonder what the guy in the bright white sweatshirt was thinking when he saw the stands fill up around him.)
(Tangent No. 2: I also wonder if the guy in the red jacket three rows back saw the guy in said white sweatshirt and felt a little bit of relief.)
Jake Hahn, Rick Hahn's son and inspiration behind the "heads" call on the fateful coin flip,
will throw out the first pitch.
(Tangent No. 3: If the junior Hahn picked "tails," I wonder if the elder Hahn would've ratted him out. "He knew what he was in for," the assistant general manager told reporters. "He would've gotten full credit if he were right, so it's only fair that he owns up.")
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John Danks will take the mound for the Sox as they attempt to win three straight elimination games for the second time this season.
Danks' numbers against the Rays are solid this year (2-1, 1.86 ERA, 20 K in 19.1 IP). The Rays have had an increasing amount of success off him (scoring zero, one and three runs off him in his starts), but then again, Danks declined across the board in the second half. He is coming off his best start of the year.
He'll face Matt Garza, a pitcher who swore off attempting to look
normal in his MLB headshots at some point during the 2006 season
(thanks to
Stick and Ball Guy for the archived ones).
Garza hasn't faced the Sox this year, but in his time with the Twins, the Sox thumped him for nine runs on 22 hits over 12 1/3 innings. Perhaps that's because he comes at hitters hard with a fastball that sits around 94-95, which the Sox can actually hit. He's generally been one of Tampa's toughest pitchers
since getting into a dugout spat with Dioner Navarro June 8, but he's had some issues as of late, with
allowing three runs in each of his last three outings, all abbreviated and with shaky peripherals.
Joe Maddon skipped Garza's second-to-last turn in the rotation, and
thought Garza threw better his last time out. Sox hitters have their work cut out for them if that's the case.
The one saving grace is
Garza is homer-prone against lefties. If Jim Thome and Ken Griffey Jr. want their rings, then they can help themselves today.