State of the Sox 2009

September 1: Twins 4, White Sox 3

With the potential game-winning run on first and nobody out, Ozzie Guillen turned to his best pitcher to try to push the game into extra innings.

That’s right: Guillen called for Tony Pena.

Pena alternated between outs and hits, but that wasn’t good enough.  A one-out single put runners on the corners, and after Pena struck out Carlos Gomez the proper way — by not throwing strikes — Guillen came out to visit the mound.

Problem was, he chatted with Pena before Ron Gardenhire announced a pinch hitter. Gardenhire called on Jose Morales (lefty) to hit for Alexi Casilla. Guillen had Randy Williams loose in the bullpen to counter, but he stuck with Pena.

The decision burned him. Morales, who is batting a whopping .750 against the White Sox for his career (9-for-12), boosted that average by lining a single to the right-center gap for the walk-off victory.

The Sox have now lost 12 straight games in which Pena has pitched, and it’s the fourth one for which he’s been mostly responsible.

Otherwise, this game appeared largely like a carbon copy of the previous night. Like Gavin Floyd, John Danks pitched well. Unlike Floyd, Danks spread his poor pitches over three innings instead of one.

Two resulted in Michael Cuddyer solo homers. But Danks was also stricken with poor defense, as Scott Podsednik failed to run down a Denard Span flyball in the gap, resulting in a leadoff triple. He’d score on an Orlando Cabrera sac fly.

Danks looked good, otherwise, allowing the three runs over seven innings. The Twins started to touch him up for hits in the final frame. Three of the Twins’ six hits off him came in the seventh, but he killed any post-Cuddyer-homer rally with a 5-4-3 double play.

Unfortunately, a solo homer by Alexei Ramirez represented the only form of offense against Jeff Manship, a pitcher of little repute who is prone to hits and baserunners.  Not like that matters to the Sox, since he’d never faced them before.

At least Gordon Beckham prevented Danks from getting tagged with the loss.  Scott Podsednik drew a four-pitch leadoff walk from Jose Mujares, and Gardenhire pulled him in favor of Matt Guerrier. Beckham greeted Guerrier with a first pitch homer into the left-field seats to tie the game.

A.J. Pierzynski reached first on after a third strike escaped Joe Mauer to start another rally with nobody out. Pinch-running Dewayne Wise couldn’t advance past second, as Paul Konerko and Jermaine Dye (justmissedit) flew out, and Carlos Quentin struck out.

Record: 64-69 | Box score | Play-by-play