posted on Thursday, July 20, 2006 7:00 PM
by
Jim
July 20: Tigers 2, White Sox 1
Sometimes broadcasters will go out of their way to overstate the importance of "the little things."
In this game, they happened to make a difference.
One batter after Marcus Thames took out Tadahito Iguchi with a crunching slide into second to break up an inning-ending double play, Chris Shelton hit a double to left center to score what would prove to be the game-winning run.
Had the Sox been able to execute the basics, one run would not have made such a great difference.
In the third inning, the Sox loaded the bases with two walks and a bloop single by Jermaine Dye. Joe Crede followed up the a single through the left, but Paul Konerko couldn't score from second because, well, Paul Konerko can't score from second.
Still, the White Sox were in good position to tack on another run, but as they've done so often with a runner on third and less than two outs lately, they couldn't cash him in. Juan Uribe popped up the second pitch he saw from Shelton for two outs, and then Chris "Automatic Out" Widger flew out harmlessly to end the inning. Widger is now hitless in his last 24 at-bats, and his last hit came more than a month ago on a bunt single.
The Sox blew another chance in the fifth when Brian Anderson singled off Kenny Rogers -- literally -- then advanced to second when Rogers' diving attempt to throw Anderson out went wide. But Pablo Ozuna fouled off two bunt attempts before striking out, and a groundout and a strikeout later, Rogers was out of the inning unscathed.
Jose Contreras has now lost two in a row, and this is a game he should've won. The Tigers took advantage of two mistakes for runs -- Shelton's double in the seventh, and Ivan Rodriguez's RBI single the inning before. But otherwise, he looked good, and it was more of a return to his pre-injury self. He only recorded one strikeout, but he broke some bats and got a healthy amoung of ground balls.
Anderson nearly spared Contreras when he hit a rocket to right field off Todd Jones with two outs in the ninth -- but it landed about five feet short, and into Magglio Ordonez's mitt. But Anderson had three hits on the day to raise his average to .212, and the fact that Ozzie didn't pull him for Rob Mackowiak shows that Anderson is gaining his manager's confidence.
Record: 58-36 | Box score | Play-by-play