After a terrible defensive showing by the White Sox yesterday, it was awfully nice of the Royals to return the favor.
The Sox took an important game tonight, but needed a couple of misreads by Joey Gathright to get the win, because the Sox offense struggled once again. Since they were facing another middling lefty in Odalis Perez, why wouldn't they?
Buddy Bell actually inserted Gathright in center before the start of the inning and slid David DeJesus to left. That turned out to be a mistake, because while DeJesus made a couple nice sliding catches, Gathright struggled with a couple reads as dusk set in.
The first was on a regular old Tadahito Iguchi flyball. The Sox entered the inning down 3-2, but tied it up when Brian Anderson led off with a double, went to third on Juan Uribe's sac bunt and scored on a surprisingly useful Sandy Alomar Jr.'s sac fly. Pablo Ozuna (2-for-4 from the leadoff spot) then doubled to keep the inning alive, but Iguchi followed up with a lazy, medium-range flyball. Gathright ran in, then lost the ball and watched it right in front of him. Ozuna came around to score, and the Sox took the lead.
In the following inning, Paul Konerko led off with a double, and then Joe Crede added a double of his own when Gathright broke the wrong way on a line drive. Surely enough, Konerko only advanced one base on a double. In next week's episode of "That's so Paulie!" watch him take 2 1/2 walk signals to cross Michigan Avenue.
Ross Gload, as he's been apt to do, singled Konerko home, stole second as Anderson struck out, but a beautiful unassissted double play by Angel Berroa kept the Sox from putting any more runs up.
Fortunately, the Sox bullpen was good for the lead this time, with Mike MacDougal, Matt Thornton and Bobby Jenks shutting the door. Jenks pitched a 1-2-3 inning, striking out the side. Believe it or not, that's the first time he's done it all year.
Mark Buehrle sounded good enough, throwing a quality start to propel himself back over .500 on the season. He did allow nine hits in six innings, though fortunately none of them left the yard. Mike Sweeney drove in fellow Sox killer Mark Grudzielanek with a single in the first, and
Ryan Shealy gave the Royals a brief lead in the sixth with an RBI double. I don't know how he looked with Alomar catching -- I could only catch the game on the radio.
Joe Crede made up for flying out with the bases loaded last night, delivering a two-run single with the sacks packed in the third to give the Sox their first lead of the series. Jermaine Dye, on the other hand, had maybe his worst game of the season. He earned himself a golden sombrero, going 0-for-4 with four Ks against Perez.
Record: 79-56 |
Box score |
Play-by-play