2006 State of the Sox

August 1: White Sox 7, Royals 5 (10 innings)

Joe Crede showed Ozzie Guillen what's possible when he's moved up in the lineup. Batting fifth, Crede went 4-for-5 with two RBI -- including one that put the Sox ahead in the 10th -- and scored three runs en route to the Sox's second straight series victory.

Scott Podsednik helped get things going when he walked leading off the 10th in place of Paul Konerko (who left the game after taking a pitch to the arm), and advanced to second on a balk by Ambiorix Burgos.  Crede then smoked the ball to center and Pods scored easily to provide a 5-4 lead.  Crede would score his third run of the game on Ross Gload's opposite-field, two-out double, and then Gload would come home on Brian Anderson's RBI single for the 7-4 lead.

Even when Crede made an out, he smoked the ball. Unfortunately, it ended up in a double play when Scott Podsednik was caught off first.  Pods was stuck no matter what, but when Crede was caught in a similar situation in the sixth, it was less defensible.  With one out and runners on first and third, Ross Gload smoked the ball to short, where it was caught by Angel Berroa.  Crede broke for home inexplicably, and was 30 feet away from the bag when Berroa caught the ball.  It was the only mistake he made all night.

I'd like to commend Ozzie Guillen for his use of Podsednik and Rob Mackowiak.  He pinch-hit Mack for Pablo Ozuna in the seventh, and Mack rewarded him with a single.  Mack is now 7-for-13 as a pinch hitter.  Then when he needed a second lefty hitter off the bench, Ozzie used Pods, and Pods walked to start the 10th-inning rally.  That's how I've been asking him to draw it up, and it worked well tonight.

Bobby Jenks made it slightly interesting in the last half inning when he surrendered a homer to Angel Berroa starting off the 10th.  It's the pitch a lot of batters hit hard -- 94 miles per hour and at the knees.  But he retired the next three batters in order for his 29th save of the year. 

The bullpen made it closer than it had to be and cost Mark Buehrle his first victory since June 27.  In another episode of “Pitching Staff Whack-A-Mole,” Ozzie brought in Matt Thornton, who has dominated this past week, in an inning where he’d be facing a fair share of lefties.  He ends up walking David DeJesus leading off the inning, and a couple of hits later, it’s a tie game with only one out, and runners on first and third.

David Riske, however, saved Thornton’s hide with an immaculate relief appearance.  He faced four guys and got five outs – a double play on the first batter he faced, and then he struck out the side in the ninth.  A lot of times, relievers will luck into a win, but he earned this one.

Buehrle pitched well enough for a victory of his own.  He made me roll my eyes when he gave up a first-inning homer to Reggie Sanders after Tadahito Iguchi let a ball go under his glove one batter prior.  But he recovered to throw six solid innings, working himself out of the only jam of the night when he got a double play ball when the Royals had runners on first and third.  He finished his day with 93 pitches, and having retired his last 10 batters. 

We don't know if Sandy Alomar Jr. helped him behind the plate, but he aided Buehrle at the plate, coming up with a couple of RBI with a run-scoring single in the second and a two-out RBI double in the eighth.  He did allow two stolen bases and struck out with a runner on third and less than one out in the sixth, but overall, it was more than Chris Widger did in the past two months.

Record: 63-42 | Box score | Play-by-play

July 31: White Sox 8, Royals 4

Jose Contreras finally won a game.  The Sox finally gained a game on the Tigers.  And they did so by overpowering the Royals in the truest sense of the word.  It wasn't pretty, and the Royals put up a fight, but they just couldn't keep up. 



Contreras had a rough go of it at the start, allowing three runs in the first two innings as the Royals managed to get under his two-seamer and splitter enough to shoot them into the outfield.  They weren't hitting easy pitches, but it seemed as though Contreras wasn't changing the Kansas City hitters' eye levels enough.  They scored two in the first, and only a Joey Gathright 4-6-3 double play with the bases loaded got Contreras out of the inning.  He retired the first two hitters in the second, but a couple more hits after a Juan Uribe error gave the Royals their third run of the ballgame.

After that point, Contreras settled down enough to throw seven innings (on 122 pitches) to earn his first victory since Independence Day, giving the bullpen a rest.  After a series in which Ozzie had to throw plenty of relievers, only Brandon McCarthy was needed to finish the game.  He did so in an uneventful fashion.

Meanwhile, the offense put up plenty of runs early on Runelvys Hernandez.  In fact, all eight of the Sox runs were scored in the first three innings, including a burst of really small ball in the first.  A.J. Pierzynski and Ross Gload (playing for Jim Thome this time) drove in runs on infield singles, and another run scored when Hernandez balked.  Can't get three runs in a much smaller fashion. 

Chicago would return to its long-ball ways in the second and third, when the Sox added five more on a two-run shot by Alex Cintron, a solo shot by Jermaine Dye, and another two-run blast by Joe Crede.  Unlike some of the other games in which they scored most of their runs via the homer, the attack was balanced.  Everybody had a hit except Paul Konerko, and even he walked twice to ensure that everybody on the Sox reached base. 

The Sox wouldn't score in the last six innings of the ballgame, but given the heat and the lengthy games the Sox played in Baltimore, perhaps that was for the better.

Record: 62-42 | Box score | Play-by-play