State of the Sox 2009

September 15: White Sox 6, Mariners 3

This game had the hallmarks of a team White Sox fans have seldom seen this year.

The offense rallied from an early 3-0 hole, finally supporting a quality start, thanks to some timely hitting. And they held it thanks to some excellent middle relief work.

A.J. Pierzynski, who hasn’t done much with runners in scoring position, changed the game with his best plate appearance of the year.

Pierzynski came to the plate to face Mark Lowe with runners on second and third and two outs. Lowe got a 2-2 count on him, and thus began the battle. Three fouls, a ball and a foul later, Pierzynski finally found one he could square up. He slashed one to left, and that would be good enough to score both runs as Bill Hall airmailed the throw.

The throwing error allowed Pierzynski to reach second, and Paul Konerko cashed him in with his second double of the night, a beautiful liner to the right-center gap.

Ozzie Guillen called on a combination of Octavio Dotel and Matt Thornton to take care of the seventh and eighth, and they teamed up to work around an error (see below) with maybe the most beautiful pair of outs the bullpen has provided all year.

Dotel had runners on second and third with one out and Jose Lopez at the plate, and Dotel got ahead 0-2.  He tried one slider that Lopez fouled off, and then came back with fastballs. Lopez kept fouling them off, but eventually Dotel got one Lopez kept in play, and it ended up in Mark Kotsay’s mitt on the foul side of first base.

Guillen then called on Thornton to face Griffey, and he simply blew him away. Two fastballs looking, one fastball swinging, thank you very much. Thornton retired all four men he faced.

The Sox added an insurance run in the ninth. After a hit-and-run that Alexei Ramirez executed to get Chris Getz to third, Getz came around to score on a wild pitch.

The run came in handy, as Bobby Jenks allowed the tying run to come to the plate, even with a three-run lead. He did get screwed when Angel Hernandez didn’t believe that Jenks won a footrace with Ichiro Suzuki for what should’ve been the third out, but after a single, he struck out Lopez with a ball in the dirt to end the game.

Freddy Garcia ended up getting the win, one he deserved after shaking off a shaky start. He allowed all three runs over his first three innings of work. The first came on a solo shot by Ken Griffey Jr., right after he hooked one home-run diestance ball just foul. It was almost like Garcia was helping General Soreness hit No. 626.

Garcia then gave up a two-out double and single to fall behind 2-0 after two, and an RBI groundout after a double steal to stretch it to 3-0 after three.  He did strand Franklin Gutierrez on second, though, and settled down after that.

The offense then began to chip away. Pierzynski scored the first run after leading off the fourth with a single.  He moved up on a Paul Konerko walk and a passed ball/wild pitch, and Mark Kotsay drove them both in with a double. Kotsay advanced to third on a deep Jermaine Dye fly, but he’d be stranded there after Carlos Quentin lined out to third and Chris Getz grounded out.

Dye failed to score a runner from third with less than two outs in the fifth, striking out on three pitches. That’s what made Pierzynski’s sixth-inning at-bat such a big one.

Despite the satisfaction from this comeback, a few indicators of the same ol’ Sox remained:

*A ball fell between Carlos Quentin and Alexei Ramirez for a non-error error, putting the pressure on Octavio Dotel. It should’ve been Quentin’s ball, but Ramirez sent mixed signals with his pursuit.

*Scott Podsednik had another problem with the wall on a fly to deep right, which ended up as a Mike Carp triple. Garcia pitched around it.

*Pierzynski ran into yet another out on an unsuccessful attempt to stretch a single into a double.

On the other hand, Gordon Beckham made two beautiful stabs to his right, and defensive replacement Alex Rios made a deep fly over his head look like a piece of cake.

Record: 72-73 | Box score | Play-by-play

September 2: White Sox 4, Twins 2

Gordon Beckham and the White Sox were down to their last bullet. Down 2-0 because they couldn’t get to another pitcher of no repute, the Sox faced a taller task of having to get to Nathan … with nobody on and an 0-2 count.

Nathan threw his best put-me-away slider, diving down and out of the zone. Beckham checked his swing, and first-base umpire ruled no swing on Mike Redmond’s appeal. Another slider, same location, but Beckham found it easier to lay off. Beckham didn’t bite on a low-and-away fastball, either, filling up the count.

Nathan then threw a fastball right down the pipe, and Beckham cranked it into the left field seats to put the Sox on the board.

But the Minnesota closer got back on the horse, getting Paul Konerko against the ropes with a 2-2 count. Konerko laid off an outside fastball to work the count full. He fouled back another fastball, and when Nathan came back with a hanging slider, Konerko got enough of it to put it in the first row, over the glove of a leaping Denard Span.

Suddenly, the Sox that showed nothing against Brian Duensing tied the game against one of baseball’s best closers.

And, they weren’t done.

Nathan lost control of his slider, with Jermaine Dye drawing an easy walk watching four of them slide out of the zone. He was replaced by Dewayne Wise, who stole second during Carlos Quentin’s at-bat. Quentin tried helping him out by chasing a well-outside breaking ball to fall behind 1-2, but Nathan threw three more out of the zone.

Ron Gardenhire had seen enough, as he called for Matt Guerrier to finally end the Minnesota misery. Guerrier picked up where Nathan left off, getting an 0-2 count on Alexei Ramirez. But Ramirez got down for a weak breaking ball, and lined it into left field.

Jeff Cox tested Span’s arm in left, sending Wise. It was a smart decision, but it nearly backfired when Span’s throw appeared on line. Mike Redmond couldn’t handle the short hop, however, and Wise slid in under the catcher as the ball caromed away, giving the Sox an unlikely 3-2 lead.

Another bad bounce gave the Sox the luxury of an insurance run, when Redmond couldn’t block a Guerrier slider, allowing Quentin to score.

Bobby Jenks finally got to pitch when it counted (although, I’m sad to say, Guillen didn’t warm him up until a two-out mound meeting after the Sox tied the game). He couldn’t get Jose Morales out either, as the third catcher fisted a flare to left to keep the Twins’ hopes alive. Jenks ended it one batter later, when Wise made an ugly catch around Jayson Nix in shallow right for the game’s final out.

Mark Buehrle once again failed to record a win since the perfect game, and much like his cohorts in the rotation, his quality start went unrewarded. He held the Twins scoreless until the sixth, when he couldn’t survive the Minnesota cadre of Sox killers.

Alternating between guys who hammer Sox pitcher and guys who don’t, Buehrle ended up on the wrong side of the numbers.  He retired Punto (no big deal), gave up a single on an 0-2 count to Span (per usual), and struck out Orlando Cabrera.  All he had to do was retire one of the Twins’ tough lefties to preseve the shutout.  He couldn’t.

Buehrle even caught two breaks.  Joe Mauer’s opposite-field double bounded over the fence, which kept Span at third when he would’ve scored easily.  After an intentional walk to Justin Morneau to face the equally unfriendly Jason Kubel, Buehrle fell behind 3-1.  He threw a fastball well out of the zone, but as Kubel bent down to unbuckle his shin guard, home plate umpire Bob Davidson surprisingly called “strike.”

Buehrle couldn’t take advantage, as Kubel went the other way on an outer-half pitch and flared one just in front of Quentin for a 2-0 lead.

That appeared to be plenty for the buzzsaw known as Brian Duensing, especially since the Sox routinely shot themselves in the foot.

Scott Podsednik started it in high style by leading it off with a single, then running into an out. He saw hit-and-run when nobody gave him the single, and was effectively picked off.  That set the tone for the day, because when Beckham followed with a walk, Paul Konerko grounded into a double play.

That was the first of four twin killings on the afternoon. Ramirez’s one in the fifth particularly hurt, as the Sox had two on and nobody out, but the seventh inning was the most fitting.  The Sox brought the best of both worlds together — Jermaine Dye grounded into a double play, and Carlos Quentin was thrown out at second trying to stretch a single into a double to end the inning.

But while Buehrle couldn’t get the win, at least the bullpen earned it.  Scott Linebrink survived his inning of work, getting help from Ramon Castro (throwing Brendan Harris out at second) and working around a typical Punto infield. single.

Ozzie Guillen then summoned Randy Williams to start the eighth, and didn’t push his luck after facing Mauer and Morneau.  Carlos Gomez came to the plate, Guillen countered with D.J. Carrasco, and the Sox won the battle with an inning-ending 4-3.

Record: 65-69 | Box score | Play-by-play

August 11: White Sox 3, Mariners 1

Entering tonight, the White Sox were 0-49 in games they trailed after eight innings.

Courtesy of old friend David Aardsma, the Sox are now 1-49 thanks to Alexei Ramirez’s three-run homer.

It appeared Paul Konerko missed the best chance to get to Aardsma when his deep fly to center landed in Franklin Gutierrez’s mitt one foot shy of the wall. Little did we know that it would be something the Sox could build on.

A.J. Pierzynski followed his a walk — his second of the game — and Carlos Quentin ripped a single to left.  That brought Ramirez to the plate, and he cranked a high fastball over the left-field wall

Bobby Jenks did allow the tying run to come to the plate, and, of course, it was Russell Branyan. The same guy who turned the tides against Gavin Floyd on Monday and had driven in the lone Seattle run against John Danks couldn’t swing the game once more. He flew out harmlessly to center to end the game.

Danks lasted long enough to earn the victory. In his finest outing since coming off the DL, Danks allowed just the one run on seven hits over eight innings. More importantly: one walk, eight strikeouts.

He benefited from some hard-hit at-’em balls, and — more shockingly — great defense from Jermaine Dye.

Who knows how the game would’ve turned out if Branyan led off the eighth with a double?  We’ll never know, because Dye grabbed Branyan’s smash off the wall with his bare hand and fired a strike to second to erase the leadoff man. He finished the inning in 1-2-3 fashion, and the Sox offense finally heated up.

It helped that Doug Fister was out of the game. Another rookie pitcher shut down the Sox, as he held the m to one hit over six innings.  He did walk four, but the Sox couldn’t find ways to capitalize. They kept finding ways to shoot themselves in the foot, instead, as they grounded into three double plays.

Record: 58-56 | Box score | Play-by-play

August 8: White Sox 8, Indians 5

For the first four innings, this game appeared to largely be a carbon copy of Friday night.

Sure, the Sox fell into a hole because of Carlos Torres’ control problems, not Mark Buehrle’s hittability.  Torres should’ve been worse off, actually.  He loaded the bases in the first with three consecutive one-out walks, but struck out Travis Hafner and Chris Giminez to escape the inning unscathed.

Eventually, missing the strike zone would come back to bite him. Shin-Soo Choo walked with one out in the third and scored on Jhonny Peralta’s double (oddly enough, an 0-2 pitch that Torres didn’t miss enough with).  A good relay may have gotten Choo at home, but Carlos Quentin’s throw went between Alexei Ramirez’s wickets.

Torres departed with one out in the fourth.  He walked the first two batters of the inning before a sac bunt, giving him six walks over 3 1/3 innings.  Both runs would come around to score on a pair of grounders, and the Sox were down 4-1.

Fortunately, Justin Masterson, acquired from Boston in the Victor Martinez deal, hadn’t yet started this season.  He brushed off an A.J. Pierzynski RBI single in the first and shut down the Sox over the next three innings (with Paul Konerko failing to score a runner from third with less than two outs in the third).

Eric Wedge pulled him after four innings and 61 pitches, and the Indians bullpen did its thing.

*Tomo Ohka, who couldn’t crack the Sox pitching staff last year as he sat in Charlotte, hit Gordon Beckham before allowing a massive blast that fell just short of the fan deck in center to cut the lead to 5-3. He left after allowing a pair of singles and a Quentin double that scored both runners.

*Jess Todd gave up a leadoff double to Dewayne Wise in the sixth, who then advanced to third on Scott Podsednik’s productive out and came home on Beckham’s sac fly.

*Rafael Perez gave up a run himself, due mostly to his defense. A.J. Pierzynski hit a soft grounder to short, and Asdrubal Cabrera tried starting a double play. It developed so slowly that Konerko was able to reach second base and take out Luis Valbuena on the pivot. His throw sailed on him and ended up in the dugout. Pierzynski was awarded second and came around to score on Chris Getz’s single.

(Getz cost the Sox a run, potentially, when he was thrown out at second trying to take advantage of the throw home. The Sox would’ve had another runner on third with less than two outs had he stayed put.)

*Jensen Lewis hit Scott Podsednik (the third HBP of the game).  Beckham was called for interference on an otherwise good bunt, because Lewis’ throw hit him and he was on the wrong side of the baseline, but Podsednik still came around to score when a Konerko grounder went under Peralta’s mitt for the E-5.

Meanwhile, the Sox bullpen preserved the lead, with D.J. Carrasco earning a well-deserved win for his 2 1/3  scoreless innings. Matt Thornton and Bobby Jenks (first game back from a kidney stone) closed it out.

All in all, Sox pitchers combined to strike out 15 Indians. They also benefited from errorless Sox ball (aside from the relay throw), with Torres even benefiting from the rare strike-him-out-throw-him-out courtesy of Pierzynski in the second inning.

Record: 57-54 | Box score | Play-by-play

August 4: White Sox 5, Angels 4

Scott Podsednik won this game the Ed Farmer Way: With a bloop and a blast.

The former took place with two outs and two strikes in the seventh. John Lackey had gained strength as the game went on, and had retired 15 hitters in a row (including a dropped third strike on Jayson Nix, who reached after the pitch skipped to the backstop).

Lackey threw another great pitch — a fastball tailing off the plate.  Podsednik, using a method halfway between unorthodox and complete accident — popped it up with a half-swing.  It landed just inside the left-field foul line, and thinking it even surprised Podsednik, because he wasn’t running full-speed around first, and barely made it into second with a slide toward the outside half of the bag.

That extra bag was huge, because Gordon Beckham ripped a fat curve to left to score Pods and tie the game at 4.

He took care of the blast in the game’s last at-bat, following another unlikely double. Nix hadn’t had a great day at the plate, ripped a 1-2 slider from Kevin Jepsen to the left-center gap.

Jepsen’s slider had given Carlos Quentin and Chris Getz fits earlier in the inning, but apparently, he lost the touch. He threw two more unimpressive sliders to Podsednik, and after taking the first one, he lined the next one deep into the right-center gap for his third walk-off hit of the season. Beckham and Dewayne Wise have the other two.

The game’s conclusion was immensely more satisfying than its beginning after Jose Contreras lost the plate.

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April 7: White Sox 4, Royals 2

The 2009 Chicago White Sox may be heading in a younger direction, but this is still the same team.

They made errors on the basepaths when they weren’t going station-to-station, struggled through another shaky Opening Day starter, found no evidence of a center fielder … and somehow came away with the victory.

That’s thanks to Jim Thome, whose three-run homer off Kyle Farnsworth in the bottom of the eighth gave the Sox their only lead all day. Bobby Jenks nailed down the save — and a helluva day by the Sox bullpen — to make it stick.

The Gentleman Masher stretched his game-winning homer streak in regular season play to two games. Like I keep saying, embrace the home run. This is how they’re going to win.

The eighth-inning rally really started when Trey Hillman called for Kyle Farnsworth to replace an extremely effective Gil Meche. In the box score, however, it began with a bunt single by Josh Fields of all people, who had a tremendous Opening Day.

Dewayne Wise — the one person who is supposed to be able to bunt — popped up two of them before hitting a lazy flyout to center. But Chris Getz picked him up with a bloop single on a hit-and-run, getting Fields to third.

Carlos Quentin struck out, which was a theme all day (the Sox were 0-for-3 in scoring runners from third with less than two outs), but up came Thome, who blasted a 2-1 fastball over the wall just left of center for the winning margin.

Octavio Dotel retired all four hitters he faced, but had to strike out an extra one after a third strike got past A.J. Pierzynski. He ended up with a win for his performance, which was much better than his previous Opening Day, when he gave up a bases-clearing double to Casey Blake. Clayton Richard preceded him by pitching two perfect innings, with a strikeout and four groundouts.

They helped Mark Buehrle avoid the “L” on a day where he had trouble with his command. Pitch count was a problem right away, and he walked three batters and plunked two over five innings. He also gave up one homer, a no-doubt solo shot by Alex Gordon.

But it could’ve been worse when he had the bases loaded with no outs in the fifth. Fields prevented one run crossing the plate with a great play, backhanding a ball behind the bag and jump-throwing over Mark Teahan to get the force at home. Billy Butler’s 4-6 fielder’s choice scored a run, but Buehrle struck out Miguel Olivo to end the threat, as well as his day, only trailing 2-1.

The Sox wasted a bases-loaded, nobody-out opportunity of their own in the second. Thome, Jermaine Dye and Paul Konerko greeted Meche with singles to load the bases. But A.J. Pierzynski and Alexei Ramirez both hit weak flyouts to left, freezing Thome at third.

Fields made sure the Sox scored at least one with a single to left. Unfortunately, Jeff Cox made his first bad call of the season when he waved Dye around. DeJesus had made two throws home already on the shallow flies, so he had plenty of practice to throw out Dye by 10 feet.

That wasn’t the only bad baserunning of the day, either. Pierzynski nullifed his only contribution of the day when he tried to stretch a single down the left-field line into a double after hesitating rounding first. DeJesus gunned him down at second for his second outfield assist.

Pierzynski’s bad day (effectively an 0-for-3, three stranded, one passed ball that was called a wild pitch) paled in comparison to Wise’s, who struck out his first three times at the plate before botching the bunts in his last at-bat.

Record: 1-0 | Box score | Play-by-play