August 30: Yankees 8, White Sox 3
The White Sox appeared to have a good thing going in the third inning, as they greeted Joba Chamberlain with three straight singles. Alexei Ramirez slashed one to left-center, stole second, moved to third on Jayson Nix’s single, and scored on Scott Podsednik’s single back through the box for a 2-1 lead.
Then, for whatever reason, Nix got greedy. Melky Cabrera’s throw back to second escaped Robinson Cano, rolling away toward the mound. Nix took off for third, but Cano got to the ball and fired a rocket to Alex Rodriguez in time to get Nix at third. He’d committed a cardinal sin, getting thrown out at third with nobody out.
That basically killed the Sox offense. Podsednik stole second to get a runner back in scoring position, and only Mark Kotsay would get past first base the rest of the day. Yankee pitchers retired the next eight, and the Sox’s only other form of offense would come with two outs in the ninth, when Jermaine Dye homered off Phil Coke to narrow the lead to 8-3.
Freddy Garcia wasn’t the problem. Sure, he threw a couple hangers, including a changeup to Johnny Damon that he sent to the second deck, giving the Yankees a 3-2 lead and Garcia the “L.” But he still threw a quality start, and even pitched around two errors. Nix missed out on a double play when he didn’t throw behind Rodriguez at first, and then Gordon Beckham couldn’t track a high pop-up that fell just foul behind him.
No, a combination of Mark Wegner, Randy Williams and Ozzie Guillen ruined this game.
Williams entered the game in the seventh and appeared to erase a leadoff single to Jorge Posada with a 4-6-3 double play ball from Cano. Wegner called Cano safe at first, and that out would come back to bite them.
But the ump wasn’t entirely to blame. Williams went to a 3-0 count on a guy he was supposed to have a matchup advantage over in Eric Hinske, walking him on five pitches. Then Ozzie Guillen made matters worse by letting him face Melky Cabrera, who drilled a double off the left-field wall for a 4-2 lead.
Guillen then felt compelled to yank him, but replaced him with Scott Linebrink. Jerry Hairston hit a line drive to left field for a sac fly, which should’ve been the third out. Instead, it was the second, and that allowed Linebrink to throw a hanging curve over the center of the plate to Mark Teixeira. Teixeira hit it high, far, and gone over the right-field wall.
Record: 64-67 | Box score | Play-by-play
