October 2: White Sox 8, Tigers 0
Jake Peavy was good. The Tigers were really, really bad.
Peavy threw eight incredibly easy innings, allowing just two hits and two runs while striking out five as he recorded his third win in as many starts in a White Sox uniform.
And he got all the runs he needed when Scott Podsednik led off the game with a massive homer. Seriously, it was a no-doubt blast just inside the right-field foul pole off Edwin Jackson.
From there on out, the Sox tacked on. They labored, but Detroit was happy to help out.
Jermaine Dye “doubled” in a run in the fourth when Carlos Guillen went to make a sliding catch on a ball he could’ve caught standing. As it turned out, he hit the ground well before the ball, and it ended up dropping between his legs for a 2-0 lead.
Dye then walked in a run in the sixth, Jackson’s third walk in four batters to start the inning (with some help from Tim Tschida’s shapeshifting strike zone). Mark Kotsay chased him from the game with a double, and the Sox ended up crossing the plate five times for the game’s final score.
Peavy cruised all the while, retiring 19 of 20 batters at one point — and that batter reached on an Alexei Ramirez error. But Ramirez made up for it with a brilliant play on a sinking one-hopper off the bat of Ramon Santiago. Ramirez gloved it on the shortstop while going down to one knee and his back facing home, then uncoiled and let loose a laser to get Santiago by a half step.
Peavy only lost composure once — on a weird jump balk that allowed Magglio Ordonez to advance to second following the Ramirez error. As the final score would tell you, it didn’t hurt.
Record: 78-82 | Box score | Play-by-play
