September 9: White Sox 4, Athletics 3 (13 innings)
Nobody deserved to win this game. Fortunately, the A’s wanted it less.
In a comedy of errors, the Sox had the last laugh, with A.J. Pierzynski’s double ending an awful night of baseball in nearly all respects.
Alexei Ramirez started the 13th with a one-out single off Edgar Gonzalez. Pierzynski came up and sent one over Rajai Davis’ head in center. Davis couldn’t track it effectively, and the ball caromed off the top of the wall and past Davis on its way back to the infield. Compounding Davis’ mistake, left fielder Eric Patterson was extremely late in backing up Davis.
Oddly enough, Ramirez did everything right on the play. It was a hit-and-run, and while it took a second for Ramirez to pick up the batted ball, once he saw it going to deep center, he stayed put on second. He didn’t lose any momentum when he saw the fly wasn’t caught, and he scored easily while Hawk Harrelson bellowed, “Come on, Alexei!” four times.
Ramirez’s running stood in stark contrast to the display put on by Scott Hairston in the top half of the inning.
He reached on a mistake himself. With one out, he hit a routine, medium-range flyball to Alex Rios, and Rios inexplicably dropped it.
But Hairston was kind enough to erase the error. He took off for second on a hit-and-run, but unlike Ramirez, he never checked to see where the ball went. Chris Getz pretended like it was a potential 4-6-3 ball, but in reality, Kurt Suzuki popped it up to first. Josh Fields caught it, then flipped to first for an easy double play.
Credit Octavio Dotel with excellent relief work, as the 13th inning was his third scoreless one. It was also the second that ended with an unusual double play, as Pierzynski completed a strike-him-out-throw-him-out to end the 12th. More impressively, it was Pierzynski’s second successful throw of the night.
None of the above should’ve happened if it weren’t for Tony Pena.
Pena, who entered the game with nobody on and two outs with a one-run lead in the eighth, appeared to have everything in hand when he got ahead of Hairston with two strikes. He then proceeded to throw one of the worst 0-2 pitches I can remember — a hanging slider — and Hairston lined it past the outstretched glove of Scott Podsednik for a double.
Pena tried to shake it off by getting ahead of Suzuki 0-2, but guess what? He threw another rolling slider. This one was a little lower, and on the outer half of the plate, but not enough of either to prevent Suzuki from shooting it back through the middle to tie the game at 3.
It was the only blemish in an otherwise outstanding night for Sox pitching. Freddy Garcia threw another quality start, finishing his night by stranding a runner on third and protecting a 3-0 lead. Matt Thornton threw 1 2/3 scoreless innings and left the bases empty for Pena, and Ozzie Guillen even used Bobby Jenks in a tie game. His counterpart, Bob Geren, left Rookie of the Year candidate and closer Andrew Bailey in the bullpen despite needing eight innings from his relievers after a four-inning start from Trevor Cahill.
On the other hand, the Sox offense could’ve given its pitching a little more of a cushion. Podsednik had a four-hit game and stole his 27th base, but only scored once. He needed a two-base error on an errant Cahill pickoff throw to do it.
He drove in the Sox’s second run on a ground rule double in the second. If it didn’t bounce over the fence, it would’ve scored two, but Adam Kennedy set the tone for generosity by double-clutching on Ramirez’s weak chopper. Jayson Nix would’ve been dead meat at the plate had he fielded it cleanly, but it gave the Sox a 3-1 lead instead.
The Sox wouldn’t score another run for another 11 innings, as they couldn’t buy a hit in the clutch. They went a whopping 1-for-16 with runners in scoring position on the evening, and stranded 16 runners overall.
Record: 70-71 | Box score | Play-by-play
