State of the Sox 2009

April 12: White Sox 6, Twins 1

The last time they met back in Game 163, Nick Blackburn learned that a high changeup isn’t the best pitch to throw Jim Thome in the second half of a tie game.

Today, he learned that a low fastball down the middle doesn’t work, either.

With a runner on and a full count in the sixth inning, the Gentleman Masher sent Blackburn’s fastball into the right-center seats to give the Sox a 3-1 lead as they fought their way back to .500.

The homer also gave Mark Buehrle a much-deserved win after a no-decision appeared to be the likely outcome.

Delmon Young’s solo homer (and he hit his first homer of the year off Buehrle last year, too) was the only blemish on an otherwise excellent day for Buehrle.  He held the Twins to just two hits, and Young’s homer was the last batter to reach.  He finished his day after 6 1/3 innings having retired the last 15 batters.

It took a while for the Sox to suport Buehrle, but eventually they began to pile on.  They took advantage of some Minnesota mistakes to do it.

Paul Konerko led off the fifth with a single, and he went from first to third on Dewayne Wise’s two-out single.  Chris Getz hit a hard grounder to first, and Michael Cuddyer — playing out of position — couldn’t handle it, allowing Konerko to cross the plate and tie the game.

Thome mashed his tater the next inning, and the Sox piled on three more over the next two innings.  Josh Fields’ opposite-field single made it a 4-1 game, and Carlos Quentin’s flyball to shallow right was good enough to score pinch-running Brent Lillibridge.

Jermaine Dye’s solo shot off Joe Nathan in the eighth appeared to not mean much, but it took on extra importance when Clayton Richard loaded the bases with nobody out.  Bobby Jenks had to put out the fire, and he did just that by striking out Joe Crede, then getting Young to hit into a game-ending 6-3 double play.

Record: 3-3 | Box score | Play-by-play

April 7: White Sox 4, Royals 2

The 2009 Chicago White Sox may be heading in a younger direction, but this is still the same team.

They made errors on the basepaths when they weren’t going station-to-station, struggled through another shaky Opening Day starter, found no evidence of a center fielder … and somehow came away with the victory.

That’s thanks to Jim Thome, whose three-run homer off Kyle Farnsworth in the bottom of the eighth gave the Sox their only lead all day. Bobby Jenks nailed down the save — and a helluva day by the Sox bullpen — to make it stick.

The Gentleman Masher stretched his game-winning homer streak in regular season play to two games. Like I keep saying, embrace the home run. This is how they’re going to win.

The eighth-inning rally really started when Trey Hillman called for Kyle Farnsworth to replace an extremely effective Gil Meche. In the box score, however, it began with a bunt single by Josh Fields of all people, who had a tremendous Opening Day.

Dewayne Wise — the one person who is supposed to be able to bunt — popped up two of them before hitting a lazy flyout to center. But Chris Getz picked him up with a bloop single on a hit-and-run, getting Fields to third.

Carlos Quentin struck out, which was a theme all day (the Sox were 0-for-3 in scoring runners from third with less than two outs), but up came Thome, who blasted a 2-1 fastball over the wall just left of center for the winning margin.

Octavio Dotel retired all four hitters he faced, but had to strike out an extra one after a third strike got past A.J. Pierzynski. He ended up with a win for his performance, which was much better than his previous Opening Day, when he gave up a bases-clearing double to Casey Blake. Clayton Richard preceded him by pitching two perfect innings, with a strikeout and four groundouts.

They helped Mark Buehrle avoid the “L” on a day where he had trouble with his command. Pitch count was a problem right away, and he walked three batters and plunked two over five innings. He also gave up one homer, a no-doubt solo shot by Alex Gordon.

But it could’ve been worse when he had the bases loaded with no outs in the fifth. Fields prevented one run crossing the plate with a great play, backhanding a ball behind the bag and jump-throwing over Mark Teahan to get the force at home. Billy Butler’s 4-6 fielder’s choice scored a run, but Buehrle struck out Miguel Olivo to end the threat, as well as his day, only trailing 2-1.

The Sox wasted a bases-loaded, nobody-out opportunity of their own in the second. Thome, Jermaine Dye and Paul Konerko greeted Meche with singles to load the bases. But A.J. Pierzynski and Alexei Ramirez both hit weak flyouts to left, freezing Thome at third.

Fields made sure the Sox scored at least one with a single to left. Unfortunately, Jeff Cox made his first bad call of the season when he waved Dye around. DeJesus had made two throws home already on the shallow flies, so he had plenty of practice to throw out Dye by 10 feet.

That wasn’t the only bad baserunning of the day, either. Pierzynski nullifed his only contribution of the day when he tried to stretch a single down the left-field line into a double after hesitating rounding first. DeJesus gunned him down at second for his second outfield assist.

Pierzynski’s bad day (effectively an 0-for-3, three stranded, one passed ball that was called a wild pitch) paled in comparison to Wise’s, who struck out his first three times at the plate before botching the bunts in his last at-bat.

Record: 1-0 | Box score | Play-by-play

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