Tonight was just one of those nights. Jarrod Washburn made a lot of good pitches, some good Seattle defense thwarted the only rally the Sox put together, Mark Buehrle didn’t have his arsenal working for him, and Ozzie didn’t capitalize on a late-inning switch that cost the Sox an out. That’s why you don’t give games away, because you won’t win every game with your ace on the mound.
The loss gives the Sox a 1-2 start for the first half of their six-game West Coast swing.
Buehrle suffered his first loss of the season, but his outing could’ve been a lot worse after a rocky second inning. He didn’t have his curveball working, and because of that had trouble working away from right-handed hitters. In the second, Richie Sexson and Carl Everett hit opposite-field singles, and then Buehrle loaded the bases when he tried to come in on Kenji Johjima and hit him.
After a fielder’s choice RBI on a slow grounder to short by Adrian Beltre, Buehrle left a cutter up on the outer half of the plate and Jose Lopez went opposite-field again to give the Mariners a 3-1 lead.
Buehrle did settle down and pitched seven innings, only allowing one other run, a Raul Ibanez homer in the sixth. But with a rock-solid Washburn on the mound, the Mariners didn’t need any more. Sox hitters didn’t look comfortable, even though the strike zone of home umpire Mike Muchlinski (making his debut behind the plate) shrunk as the game went on. Washburn threw a lot of first pitch strikes and made the Sox beat him, and they just couldn’t today.
The Sox did put together a rally against Washburn in the seventh when Jim Thome and Paul Konerko led the inning off with back-to-back singles. But Willie Bloomquist helped to kill a good chunk of momentum when he made a beautiful diving catch of Joe Crede’s liner to right-center. Konerko tagged up and then scored a batter later on Juan Uribe’s sac fly to at least break up the shutout, but it was the only true threat the Sox mounted.
When they did have something going in the ninth – with Konerko and Thome once again reaching base off J.J. Putz to start the inning – I was surprised to see that Ozzie didn’t pinch-run for Konerko. Pinch-running is Pablo Ozuna’s sole purpose on the bench, and there was no bonus to having Konerko out there on the basepaths. Sure enough, Jermaine grounded into a slow 6-4-3 double play that Ozuna probably would’ve broken up. That’s not saying it would’ve made a difference ultimately, but it concerns me that Ozzie would sit on his hands in that situation. And that's not even counting the injury risk.
Putz struggled to finish up, walking Crede before finally retiring Uribe after a seven-pitch struggle. Uribe just hit a home-run-distance foul to left before flying out on a deep drive to right-center to end the game. Putz was leaving a lot of pitches up, and it feels like Ozzie wasn’t taking that as seriously as he should have. Ozuna should’ve been in there.
Record: 14-7 |
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