Thursday, May 04, 2006 - Posts

May 4: White Sox 4, Mariners 1

After yesterday’s remarkable roller coaster of a game, today marked a return to normalcy.  Jim Thome provided the power and Jose Contreras pitched seven strong innings as the Sox finished the two-game sweep of Seattle in a very 2006 Sox-like fashion.

Contreras ran into a little bit of trouble in the second but otherwise controlled the first half of the game.  At one point, El Conde had retired 14 in a row, and had been economical with his pitches. 

Of course, Jose wouldn’t rack up his 13th consecutive victory without a little misfortune.  The sixth inning provided a scare  – as Ozzie Guillen said, “Oh no, not 2004 again.”  Contreras retired the first two Mariners, then walked three out of the next four batters with a single in between.  Contreras walked in a run, then nearly did it again when he went down 3-0 to Matt Lawton.  Three pitches later, he got Matt Lawton to fly out to left to end the inning. 

That would be the last time Seattle threatened.  Contreras retired his last five hitters, and then he handed the ball over to Neal Cotts and Bobby Jenks to close the game.  Contreras is the first pitcher in the American League to five wins, and the White Sox became the first team to win 20.

There’s not much to say about the offense that can’t be summed up with the words “Jim Thome.”  After Scott Podsednik walked (and wasn’t thrown out) and Tadahito Iguchi singled, Thome hit a three-run homer off Felix Hernandez in the first inning, his eleventh on the year.  Two innings later, he scored when he doubled and Paul Konerko drove him in with a single to finish the Sox’s scoring on the night.

The 2-3-4 hitters went 6-for-11.  The rest of the lineup went 2-for-20, and guess who had the only two hits?  Ross Gload had one in his second consecutive start.  It was strange that he was starting in place of Brian Anderson when Anderson had two homers off Hernandez the only other time he saw him, but there’s not much room to complain when Gload’s seeing playing time. 

The other one was Joe Crede, but the single wasn’t the highlight of the day. His came with the glove in the eighth inning, when he made a sliding catch down against the tarp in left field.  He slid on the warning track, crashed into the tarp feet-first, but got enough glove on the ball for it to bounce up.  The ball then bounced off his thigh, his knee and rolled up his shin before he grabbed it with his bare hand for the out.

On second thought, it’s easier to just watch the video. 

After declaring Iguchi’s diving barrel-roll throw the hard-to-beat play of the year only a couple weeks ago, Crede’s tops it. 

Record: 20-9 | Box score | Play-by-play
posted Thursday, May 04, 2006 10:09 PM by Jim with 0 Comments