August 4: White Sox 5, Angels 4
Scott Podsednik won this game the Ed Farmer Way: With a bloop and a blast.
The former took place with two outs and two strikes in the seventh. John Lackey had gained strength as the game went on, and had retired 15 hitters in a row (including a dropped third strike on Jayson Nix, who reached after the pitch skipped to the backstop).
Lackey threw another great pitch — a fastball tailing off the plate. Podsednik, using a method halfway between unorthodox and complete accident — popped it up with a half-swing. It landed just inside the left-field foul line, and thinking it even surprised Podsednik, because he wasn’t running full-speed around first, and barely made it into second with a slide toward the outside half of the bag.
That extra bag was huge, because Gordon Beckham ripped a fat curve to left to score Pods and tie the game at 4.
He took care of the blast in the game’s last at-bat, following another unlikely double. Nix hadn’t had a great day at the plate, ripped a 1-2 slider from Kevin Jepsen to the left-center gap.
Jepsen’s slider had given Carlos Quentin and Chris Getz fits earlier in the inning, but apparently, he lost the touch. He threw two more unimpressive sliders to Podsednik, and after taking the first one, he lined the next one deep into the right-center gap for his third walk-off hit of the season. Beckham and Dewayne Wise have the other two.
The game’s conclusion was immensely more satisfying than its beginning after Jose Contreras lost the plate.
The White Sox gave him a quick 2-0 lead with solo homers by Beckham and Carlos Quentin in the first two innings. Contreras seemed to settle down after a leadoff walk to Chone Figgins, especially after A.J. Pierzynski threw him out at second, because he retired the next five batters.
It all went to pot in the third.
Contreras walked Erick Aybar, Gary Matthews Jr., and Figgins once again after a Jeff Mathis sac bunt. A wild pitch scored Aybar, and Bobby Abreu’s two-run single gave the Angels a 3-2 lead with just one hit.
Country Joe West must not have been watching Contreras too closely, because when he lost a slider and sent it over Vladimir Guerrero’s head, West issued a warning. It appeared either Ozzie Guillen or A.J. Pierzynski would get tossed, but both remained in the game.
Contreras didn’t after walking Guerrero on five pitches. Guillen called for D.J. Carrasco, and the Sox swingman answered the call with four strong innings in relief. It was his longest outing of the year, and the start of an excellent night of managing by Guillen. He pushed all the right buttons, mixing and matching Carrasco, Randy Williams, Tony Pena and Matt Thornton to near perfection.
The Sox bullpen and Lackey ratched down the weirdness after the third inning. Jim Thome should’ve grounded into a double play, but Figgins — a third baseman playing short thanks to the shift — let the ball go under his glove.
Jermaine Dye advanced to third on the play and would score on batter later on Paul Konerko’s sac fly, but that almost became a double play when Thome thought the ball would drop in front of Juan Rivera. He scrambled (I guess) back to the bag in time, thanks to Jeff Mathis dropping Rivera’s throw.
Record: 55-52 | Box score | Play-by-play
