August 11: White Sox 3, Mariners 1
Entering tonight, the White Sox were 0-49 in games they trailed after eight innings.
Courtesy of old friend David Aardsma, the Sox are now 1-49 thanks to Alexei Ramirez’s three-run homer.
It appeared Paul Konerko missed the best chance to get to Aardsma when his deep fly to center landed in Franklin Gutierrez’s mitt one foot shy of the wall. Little did we know that it would be something the Sox could build on.
A.J. Pierzynski followed his a walk — his second of the game — and Carlos Quentin ripped a single to left. That brought Ramirez to the plate, and he cranked a high fastball over the left-field wall
Bobby Jenks did allow the tying run to come to the plate, and, of course, it was Russell Branyan. The same guy who turned the tides against Gavin Floyd on Monday and had driven in the lone Seattle run against John Danks couldn’t swing the game once more. He flew out harmlessly to center to end the game.
Danks lasted long enough to earn the victory. In his finest outing since coming off the DL, Danks allowed just the one run on seven hits over eight innings. More importantly: one walk, eight strikeouts.
He benefited from some hard-hit at-’em balls, and — more shockingly — great defense from Jermaine Dye.
Who knows how the game would’ve turned out if Branyan led off the eighth with a double? We’ll never know, because Dye grabbed Branyan’s smash off the wall with his bare hand and fired a strike to second to erase the leadoff man. He finished the inning in 1-2-3 fashion, and the Sox offense finally heated up.
It helped that Doug Fister was out of the game. Another rookie pitcher shut down the Sox, as he held the m to one hit over six innings. He did walk four, but the Sox couldn’t find ways to capitalize. They kept finding ways to shoot themselves in the foot, instead, as they grounded into three double plays.
Record: 58-56 | Box score | Play-by-play
