Much had been made of White Sox pitchers' ability to keep the ball in the park. Entering Tuesday, they had only allowed four home runs, the lowest total in the major leagues.
Of course, they had the fortune of pitching against some of baseball's weaker teams (MLB rank in parentheses):
- Cleveland (23)
- Detroit (14)
- Minnesota (29)
- Oakland (30)
- Baltimore (17)
- Tampa Bay (9)
The Yankees rolled into Chicago ranked 11th in baseball in homers, but they're a different beast than the Rays. Not only do they make pitchers work harder, but the last time these teams met, the Bombers trashed Sox pitching for 14 homers over a
three-
game set in the Bronx, including
eight in one game.
The good news? Even after
serving up three gopher balls to New York Tuesday night, the Sox are still ahead of last year's pace.
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Speaking of regressing to the mean (
AAAAHHH! AAAAAAHHH!), A.J. Pierzynski received a little help in stopping his slide, which had reached 3-for-21 before stepping in against Brian Bruney in the seventh inning.
First, he benefited from some bad Yankee defense. His grounder deflected off the mitt of range-deprived Jason Giambi. The ball redirected right toward Robinson Cano, but Bruney had given up covering the bag until it was too late. Scorers called it a single.
Then, he benefited from the pitching stylings of Kyle Farnsworth, who gave him the kind of low-and-in slider lefties love to put into the right field seats. Pierzynski did just that, and he ended up with a 2-for-5 night -- even though it started with him slamming and breaking his bat (strikeout with a runner on second) and flipping it in disgust (grounder to second with two on).
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While Pierzynski is falling off Ted Williams' pace, Jim Thome and Paul Konerko are beginning to pick it up themselves.
Thome was the only White Sox hitter without a hit in the box score, but he reached base three times -- and made pitches sweat while doing it. Thome saw 26 pitches over his five plate appearances, including a walk off LOOGY Brian Traber that had the potential of starting a comeback that ended two runs short.
Konerko, meanwhile, is beginning to make them pay for pitching around Thome -- something he could not do when Thome was healthy for the first month and a half of the 2007 season. While he went 2-for-4, all his plate appearances were quality ones, and well-timed with Thome's good at-bats.
He began his night by following a Thome walk with a single to center on a 3-2 count. Thome was running on the pitch, and was able to make third as the throw hit him. On the error, Konerko docked at second. The two paired up again in the fifth, when, in arguably the greatest indictment of Johnny Damon's rag arm to date, Thome went from first to third on a Konerko single to left, which turned into a double as Konerko rumbled into second on the throw.
They strung together successful plate appearances for a third time in the back-to-back walks in the seventh, and when you throw in the two warning-track flyouts Konerko had for his two outs of the night, we could see Konerko beginning to heat up before the month is over. As 2007, 2005 and 2003 illustrate, that isn't something Sox fans should take for granted.
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Minor league roundup:- Durham 3, Charlotte 2
- Charlie Haeger rebounded from a terrible outing, throwing seven innings of one-run ball. He gave up seven hits and four walks, and struck out four.
- Adam Russell and Oneli Perez allowed a run in each of their innings, with Perez taking the loss.
- Josh Fields went 2-for-4 with a run scored; he stole his third base and committed his third error.
- Jerry Owens went 1-for-4 with two walks and his fifth steal.
- West Tenn 15, Birmingham 2
- Birmingham actually had a 2-0 in the second. Heh.
- Pitching casualties: Carlos Torres (6 ER, 3 2/3 innings) and John Lujan (2/3 IP, 6 H, 6 ER, 2 BB, 0 K).
- Javier Castillo hit a solo homer; Robert Hudson went 2-for-4.
- Potomac 2, Winston-Salem 0
- Matt Long threw 5 2/3 scoreless innings in relief, allowing three hits and zero walks. He struck out three.
- Brandon Allen continued his hot hitting -- 2-for-3 with a double and a walk, amounting for half the Warthogs' hits.
- Kannapolis 8, Greensboro 1
- Johnnie Lowe needed this outing -- five innings, zero runs, two hits, two walks, seven strikeouts to lower his ERA to 6.75
- Hector Santiago struck out the side in his inning of work.
- Jose Martinez went 4-for-5 to raise his average to .254
- Christian Marrero hit his first homer and drove in two; Andrew Mead and John Curtis had two RBI as well.
Additional farm notes: