This game had to look familiar to Freddy Garcia.
There was a game last year in which two pitchers were throwing zeroes on the board, and one pitcher wasn’t allowing hits at all -- until one fateful swing would provide the game’s only run, not only spoiling the no-hitter, but also giving that pitcher the loss.
Thankfully, Freddy was on the other side of the ledger, picking up his ninth win of the year. He pitched a masterful game tonight while earning the victory, yet his opposition had an even better game. He just happened to make one mistake, and Jim Thome made him pay.
Last year, Freddy was the guy seeing two hopes dashed at once, when Jacque Jones took him over the wall for a solo shot in the eighth inning
that broke up the no-no Aug. 24. The Sox couldn’t manage to scrap together a run against Johan Santana, and that was the ballgame.
Cardinals rookie Anthony Reyes had his heart broken this time around. He made excellent pitches all game long, striking out six while only throwing 90 pitches through eight innings. It seemed that Sox hitters were going to start timing him eventually, just missing some of his pitches, but it never happened. Reyes kept the Sox off-balance all game long.
He only made one mistake, and it was to the hitter to which he could least afford to make one – Thome. The first pitch was a grooved fastball, belt high and over the middle of the plate, and Thome turned on it and hit it deep in the right-field seats. It was one of those swings where, if he just got a little elevation, it seemed it would fly out of the stadium. The ball got out of there in a hurry.
Thome would provide the only score in a contest where teams didn’t even see many chances to push a run across. Garcia retired 13 in a row at one point, and only once did St. Louis have a runner in scoring position with less than two outs – in the second inning, when Scott Rolen had an infield single and moved to second on an error. Freddy avoided a jam when he struck out the last batter he faced, So Taguchi, with a runner on second and Albert Pujols waiting on deck.
Garcia handled Pujols well during his first game back from an oblique injury, as Albert went 0-for-3 against Freddy. Bobby Jenks came in to face him for his at-bat, and he grounded out weakly to second on the first pitch. Jenks would get another groundout and a strikeout to preserve the victory.
The Sox, likewise, only had one runner in scoring position with less than two outs, when Taguchi misplayed Jermaine Dye’s flyball to the center field wall, allowing him to get to third. But A.J. Pierzynski would line out softly for the second out, and Joe Crede popped out to Yadier Molina to end the threat, making a nice grab over the fence to bring it back.
The Sox also brought their gloves, making three nice plays to back Garcia. Joe Crede had a nice lunging stab in the second, Rob Mackowiak had a sliding grab, and Jermaine Dye made a beautiful diving catch with his back to home plate. If he didn’t hold on, it likely would’ve been an inside-the-park homer, because he hit a fence post hard and took awhile to get up. He held on, though, and stayed in the game.
Record: 48-25 |
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