State of the Sox 2009

September 17: Mariners 4, White Sox 3 (14 innings)

Bobby Jenks had never given up two homers in an outing before, so, for the second consecutive game, now you’ve seen something you’ve never seen before.

Of course, this wasn’t the “hey, neat,” kind of novelty. It was another punch in the nuts in a season chock full of them.

Jenks squatted over a great John Danks start and befouled it by giving up a pair of solo shots in the ninth inning.  Jose Lopez led off by taking a 1-0 fastball over the Sox bullpen in left field, and after a pair of groundouts, Bill Hall took a 1-1 fastball to the same place. The only difference was that Hall used a shorter swing.

After Mariners pitching threw a shutout — the Sox scored their third and final run in the fifth inning — Ozzie Guillen decided to end it by bringing in Scott Linebrink.

Linebrink got the job done. After a leadoff out, Linebrink gave up a single to Ryan Langerhans, then hit Kenji Johjima on the elbow with a fastball that was supposed to be on the other side of the plate. That gave Ichiro a golden opportunity to come through, and he did just that with a single to right-center to end it. So much for the nice job done by Matt Thornton, Tony Pena, Randy Williams and Octavio Dotel, who combined to throw four scoreless innings in an attempt to get Jenks off the hook.

But Danks was the real victim. He allowed only four hits and two walks over eight efficient innings, and Adrian Beltre’s solo shot in the seventh inning constituted the only real damage.

Danks grew stronger as the game grew longer. He started off each of the first two innings with leadoff walks but worked around them, and ended up retiring 13 of 14 at one point.

Alexei Ramirez also made a tremendous play on Adam Moore, snaring a one-hop rocket behind him, spinning and making a throw to first to prevent the leadoff hitter from reaching in the third.

Danks helped himself out with his glove in the eighth. After Matt Tuiasosopo led off with a double, Danks kept him there by making a great snab on an Ichiro chopper, which prevent Tuiaososopo from advancing. He never got within 90 feet of home.

And while the Sox offense eventually settled into its snooze-inducing ways, they appeared to get to Brandon Morrow just enough to help Danks toward his 13th win.

Scott Podsednik drew a walk to start the game, then went to third on Gordon Beckham’s single and scored on A.J. Pierzynski’s sac fly. Simple enough.

In the third, Paul Konerko doubled off the top of the left field wall with one out. He would come around to score on Mark Kotsay’s single. Kotsay was thrown out at second assuming the throw wouldn’t be cut off — or maybe trying to prevent the throw from going home — but it gave the Sox a 2-0 lead.

They added one more in the fifth. Gordon Beckham led off with a walk, moved to second on Pierzynski’s groundout to second, and Mark Kotsay bounced one over Jose Lopez’s mitt at first for a 3-0 lead. Not pretty, but certainly effective.

The Sox lumber went into slumber afterward. They combined to go just 2-for-13 with runners in scoring position, and Jermaine Dye and Alex Rios went 0-for-6 apiece.

Another way to show how bad it was: Chris Getz drew four walks, stole his 25th base… and never scored.

Record: 72-75 | Box score | Play-by-play