2006 State of the Sox

May 13: Twins 8, White Sox 4

The White Sox played a nearly flawless first half of a ballgame against the Twins tonight, but the wheels flew off as soon as the second half started for their third straight loss.

With two outs in the fifth inning and the Sox leading 4-1, Luis Castillo hit a swinging bunt off Javier Vazquez.  Vazquez fielded it and threw out Castillo at first…except he was called safe.  The ump saw Paul Konerko fail to tag Castillo, but he didn’t notice that Konerko never took his foot off the bag.  

The inning should’ve ended there, but little did we know the Twins (and the umps) were just getting started.  

Back-to-back singles by Joe Mauer and Torii Hunter made it a one-run game, and then came the second questionable call.  On a 1-2 pitch, Javy Vazquez hit Mike Cuddyer with a pitch – except the pitch hit his hand after Cuddyer’s bat crossed the plate.  What should’ve been a strike instead loaded the bases, and Justin Morneau followed up with a two-run single to give the Twins the lead.

Between the two missed calls and what was said to be a considerably smaller strike zone for Vazquez in comparison to his counterpart Brad Radke, Ozzie Guillen and Don Cooper were both ejected after losing their cool, and they had the right to flip out.   And because the umpiring crew was so terrible, it somewhat obscured the job Vazquez did on the mound.

There are a few ways to look at it – none of the hits he allowed in that fifth inning were hit all that hard, but he probably threw far too many breaking balls when the Twins were struggling to hit his fastball.  Was his location off?  Or did the umps force Vazquez to catch too much of the plate because they sawed off the corners for him?  I can’t answer these questions because I only heard the radio broadcast.  Perhaps some of you have a better idea.  

Vazquez did make a mistake the next inning when he allowed a two-run homer to Castillo, once again with two outs, to put the game out of reach.  

That unfortunate fifth ruined what was an enjoyable effort by the White Sox offense through the first half of the game.  The Sox made the most of their baserunners, using three sacrifice flies to bring runners home.  Scott Podsednik scored on two of those, when he led off the third and fifth inning with a triple and a single, respectively.  

The top of the fifth was a pure Ozzieball inning – Pods singled to start the inning, then advanced to third when Tadahito Iguchi singled to right on a picture-perfect hit-and-run.  Pods scored on Jim Thome’s flyball, and two batters later, Jermaine Dye took strike two to let Iguchi steal second.  After hanging in for a few more pitches, Jermaine singled to center, scoring Iguchi to give the Sox a 5-0 lead.  

That would the only at-bat where Iguchi looked good, as he took some terrible swings tonight.  Then again, Francisco Liriano, who relieved Radke to throw 2 1/3 awesome innings, made a lot of Sox hitters look bad with four strikeouts.  It’s hard to come back from down three runs against a lefty whose slider hits 90 mph.  

On the other hand, Boone Logan looked like crap for the second straight game, putting runners on the corners in one-third of an inning.  Cliff Politte saved his hide by inducing a pop-out and forcing Juan Castro to ground into a double play.  Despite his struggles, Logan actually lowered his ERA.  What a leech.   

Record: 23-12 | Box score | Play-by-play