State of the Sox 2009

September 23: Twins 8, White Sox 6

Good news:

1. Jermaine Dye hit a pair of homers, his first in September, and his first multi-homer game since August of 2008.

2. Tyler Flowers ripped a double off the right field wall, his first major-league extra-base hit. He then scored.

Bad news:

1. Bill Welke might’ve made the worst strike call of the season, on a Joe Nathan curve ball that was caught in the opposing batter’s box. It turned a 2-1 count into a 1-2 count on A.J. Pierzynski in the ninth inning, and he struck out on a high fastball. After which, he tried to get ejected. Didn’t work.

2. Mark Buehrle’s back to being a first-half pitcher.

3. The Sox committed three errors.

4. With the bases loaded and a 3-2 count and the Twins clinging to a one-run lead, Nick Punto hit a line to center that Alex Rios pulled up on. It would’ve been an incredible catch had he left his feet, simply amazing — but he didn’t even give it a chance. The final margin? Two runs.

Record: 73-80 | Box score | Play-by-play

September 22: Twins 8, White Sox 6

Here’s a loss you can’t pin on the offense.

John Danks put the Sox in an early hole in just two batters, walking Carlos Gomez to start the game, then giving up a homer to Orlando Cabrera for an early 2-0 deficit. A double, single and sac fly gave the Twins another run before the Sox got a chance to bat.

But the Sox fought their way back in. Scott Podsednik chipped into the lead by walking, stealing second and advancing on two groundouts to get the Sox on the board. They sunk Jeff Manship two innings later, with an Alex Rios solo shot starting a barrage of five consecutive hits, including a two-run Gordon Beckham homer to give the Sox a 4-3 lead.

Danks had a habit of killing any momentum, and Mike Cuddyer played a large part.

Cuddyer scored a tying run with a leadoff double, moving to third on a single and scoring on a double play. Later on, with the game tied at 5 (more later), Cuddyer immediately regained the lead with a solo shot. Matt Tolbert hit one off the top of the wall — just out of the reach of Carlos Quentin for a two-run lead.

A good left fielder probably makes that play. An inning earlier, a good center fielder probably also catches Joe Mauer’s line drive to center. However, it got past Scott Podsednik, and A.J. Pierzynski couldn’t come up the short hop from a pretty good relay throw from Chris Getz, allowing Orlando Cabrera to score from first for a 5-4 lead.

Paul Konerko scored Gordon Beckham from first on a double to get that run back, before Danks let the game get away for good. Jason Kubel homered off Octavio Dotel in the seventh, the Twins’ fourth homer on the evening. Konerko came back with a solo shot of his own, but the Sox couldn’t muster anything more to close the gap.

Beckham and Konerko had nice days, both reaching base three times.  The Sox only stranded five runners.  Unfortunately, pitching couldn’t make it pay off.

Record: 73-79 | Box score | Play-by-play

September 21: Twins 7, White Sox 0

Orlando Cabrera hit a flare to short right, down the line. A diving Jermaine Dye didn’t get there. Nor did he stop it. It rolled away slowly behind him for a JD triple.

He then scored on an A.J. Pierzynski passed ball — on a fastball over the plate. One batter after Daniel Hudson prevented Joe Mauer from driving him in.

That was how the game started, and that was how it ended. The Twins scored their first four runs with heavy assistance from the Sox, and the offense showed nothing en route to its 13th shutout.

Hudson ran into control problems in the second, walking three batters — including two with two outs, leading to the Twins’ second run. They’d score their third thanks to a leadoff throwing error by Hudson on a Cabrera bunt.

All in all, Hudson pitched pretty well for his first major-league start, and I’ll write plenty more about it later.

Otherwise… Mark Kotsay had a nice game, with two singles and a nice diving play along the first base line. But Kotsay failed to score A.J. Pierzynski from third with less than two outs, so even he was tainted.

Record; 73-78 | Box score | Play-by-play

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 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

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

August 29: Yankees 10, White Sox 0

Record: 64-66 | Box score | Play-by-play

August 22: White Sox 4, Orioles 1

How John Danks escaped this game having allowed just one run over 6 2/3 innings is hard to fathom.

With just one out in the second inning, he already had five walks under his belt.  The out itself was a gift — Ty Wigginton drew the first walk, but tried stealing for no apparent reason. A.J. Pierzynski threw him out at second easily, so easily that Wigginton popped up and jogged back to the dugout without reaching the base.

Danks reloaded the bases with a pair of walks sandwiching a Carlos Quentin error (he couldn’t come up with a sliding catch). He appeared to have problems with his bad index finger, and Ozzie Guillen called for D.J. Carrasco to warm up in the dugout.

Did I mention Nick Markakis was at the plate? Against the Sox, Markakis came in owning a .372 average, which shot up to .429 with runners in scoring position. Markakis pushed him to a full count, which made a walk or base hit seem even more imminent.

But Danks rallied back with two consecutive strikes, with Markakis swinging at perfectly placed cutter knee high and on the outisde corner for the second out.  Danks then threw two more strikes to Nolan Reimold, who popped up to Jayson Nix for the third out.

Danks settled down after that, and the Sox gave him a cushion beyond Carlos Quentin’s no-doubt, second-inning solo shot.

They loaded the bases off David Hernandez (a rookie pitcher they’d never seen before) on a Jim Thome walk, a Quentin HBP and the first of two Pierzynski singles that wouldn’t score a runner in “scoring position.”  They actually scored two runs, though it could’ve been disastrous.

Alexei Ramirez followed with a single in front of Markakis in right. Had Markakis been aware that Thome thought he had a chance of catching it, he probably would’ve been able to get a force at home.  Instead, he threw late to second, allowing Thome to score. Mark Kotsay’s ensuing sac fly gave the Sox a 3-0 lead.

They added a run in the fifth when Jermaine Dye scored on a wild pitch, but even that inning had its problems on the bases. Thome’s single, which got Dye to third, actually was a line drive to the wall in left-center.  Thome couldn’t make it to second.

That came into play, because on the wild pitch, Thome only got to second. Which meant that, on Pierynski’s single, Thome only got to third.  He wouldn’t score.

Two times not enough for you? Well, Thome’s speed — or yet another poor baserunning decision buy Pierzynski — prevented another run from scoring in the seventh.

With Thome standing on second and two outs, Cla Meredith walked Pierzynski intentionally to bring Ramirez to the plate. Ramirez made the move blow up in Dave Trembley’s face, because he took Ramirez off the wall in left…

…except, Pierzynski tried going from first to third, and was thrown out on a great throw from Reimold — before Thome crossed the plate. Hawk Harrelson blamed Thome for being too slow, but Pierzynski had the plate in front of him the whole time.

That run almost came into play, because Bobby Jenks ended up bringing the tying run to the plate with one out in the ninth after a bloop single and a walk. Jenks came back by striking out Felix Pie and getting Adam Jones to ground into a fielder’s choice to end the game.

More ugliness:

*Cesar Izturis entered the game with a .293 OBP.  Danks walked him once, and Matt Thornton hit him with a pitch after throwing a wild pitch in the same at-bat. His low-and-in slider escaped Pierzynski, who didn’t appear to make a great effort to his left.

*Jermaine Dye played a pop-up into a triple when he short-armed a diving attempt in shallow right.

Record: 63-60 | Box score | Play-by-play

August 17: White Sox 8, Royals 7

Scott Linebrink knows how to win.

He knew what he was doing when he walked two batters with two outs, then gave up a first-pitch homer to Mike Jacobs, erasing the 7-4 lead Ozzie Guillen brought him in to protect.

He knew Scott Podsednik’s deal with the devil would continue, as he would drive in Alex Rios (dreaded leadoff walk, Alexei Ramirez sac bunt) with a single up the middle off drop-down lefty John Bale. He also knew Josh Anderson would bobble the ball in center, which made what should’ve been a play at the plate an easy run.

He also knew Bobby Jenks would have his easiest save in ages: a 1-2-3 ninth, eight pitches, seven for strikes.

Unfortunately, Mark Buehrle is a little befuddled by it all.

Buehrle didn’t exactly deserve the win. When you let Yuniesky Betancourt help put you in a 3-0 hole, you shouldn’t expect any favors. But he kept the Sox in the game, enduring some soft hits and bad defense by Jermaine Dye (who misread a high fly, stopping short then flopping in vain) to last six innings, only trailing 4-3 when he departed.

The Sox put him in position for the win in the bottom of the sixth. Brian Bannister hit Carlos Quentin to start the inning, and Rios drove him in as Mark Teahan pulled his own Dye, overrunning his double to the gap and turning it into a run-scoring three-base event. Ramirez followed with a sacrifice fly for a 5-4 lead.

A.J. Pierzynski looked like he put it out of reach in the seventh. Two batters after a Paul Konerko walk, Pierzynski blasted a no-doubter through a downpour for a 7-4 lead.

Record: 61-58 | Box score | Play-by-play

August 14: White Sox 8, Athletics 7 (10 innings)

Considering the amount of miscues and miscommunications, the Sox shouldn’t have won this.

The scoring began with a home run, and ended with a home run 10 innings later. Alexei Ramirez played the hero once again, hitting the go-ahead home run in the 10th inning, ending the 7-7 deadlock.

The late game heroics wouldn’t have been necessary if it weren’t for the lack of communication in the field, and two fateful innings. Twice miscommunications almost lead to collisions, one in the outfield, one in the infield. Both led to runs.

Staked to a 6-0 lead, Jose Contreras surrendered five runs thanks in part to some horrible defense. Alexis Rios dropped a ball in left center after Carlos Quentin crossed right in front of him, and Jayson Nix muffed a slow roller to his left. He was finally pulled for D.J. Carrasco with one out in the fifth, and although he allowed Contreras’ inherited runner to score, he finished with 2 1/3 scoreless innings.

A few things to note: Jermaine Dye had an RBI single in the first and a two-run single in the second. Ramon Castro had a two-run dinger in the second and Gordon Beckham went 3 for 5 with a double. Bobby Jenks earned his 24th save with Octavio Dotel (2-3) earning the win.

In other news, Jayson Nix replaced Chris Getz as the temporary starter at second base while Getz takes a trip to the DL for his latest injury, a strained oblique muscle. With Getz moving down, Brent Lillibridge moved up to take his spot on the roster.

August 7: Indians 6, White Sox 2

Considering Mark Buehrle dug himself into a 4-0 hole, I felt unusually optimistic.  Alas, it was unwarranted.

The Indians had Jeremy Sowers on the mound, whom the Sox almost always beat (0-6 lifetime in seven starts).  Sometimes it takes a while, but usually the third time through does the trick.  After all, opponents are batting .466 against him that go-around.

That never materialized. The Sox scored two runs off Sowers, both in the third inning on Gordon Beckham’s double and Jim Thome’s single. That was it.

Later on, Chris Perez entered the game. He had a pretty impressive history of failure against the White Sox in his young Cleveland career, and it certainly looked promising when he walked Jermaine Dye to load the bases and started Jim Thome off with two out of the strike zone.

Problem was, the second one was called a strike, and Perez found his sea legs. He struck out Jim Thome, got Paul Konerko to pop out and A.J. Pierzynski to line out to second.

Of course, it would’ve been a tall order to bail out Buehrle, anyway. He didn’t pitch particularly well, and Kelly Shoppach punished him for two opposite-field homers.

Yet despite allowing six runs on 11 hits, because the Indians’ offense was so consistent, Buehrle was able to last 7 2/3 innings because he induced six double plays. He became the first AL pitcher to do that since Dick Drago in 1972.

He somehow achieved that feat despite Jayson Nix throwing away what should’ve been a double play ball in the first inning.  The Indians ended up loading the bases with nobody out after Buehrle plunked Shin-Soo Choo, but he got Jhonny Peralta to ground into the first twin killing to limit the damage to one run.

Gordon Beckham booted a grounder, and, because bad things come in threes, Jayson Nix dropped a foul ball for his second error of the game.

Record: 56-54 | Box score | Play-by-play

August 6: Angels 9, White Sox 5

John Danks didn’t have his good stuff.  That resulted in three homers, including no-doubt shots to Jeff Mathis and Vladimir Guerrero.

He also didn’t have his head in the game.  The Angels — like they did last year — figured him out early and ran wild.  Danks gave up a double steal in the first inning, then a pair of steals to Chone Figgins in the second.

He also had a couple things working against him:

Bad luck

*Paul Nauert might’ve erroneously called Erick Aybar safe on a bang-bang play at first after a nice bunt. He’d come around to score.

*Paul Schrieber didn’t give Danks a call on a 2-2 fastball on the outside corner to Bobby Abreu. Abreu homered to opposite-field on the next pitch. It seemed like Schrieber was squeezing him, but Pitch f/x doesn’t seem to indicate that.

Bad defense

*Gordon Beckham took a risk and lost, fielding a carom off Danks with his bare hand and firing to first.  A good throw, and the inning’s over.  Instead, he threw it way left, and it skipped past Paul Konerko and the Angels took a 2-0 lead.

*Jermaine Dye forgot how many outs there were. He caught a shallow fly ball with a genuine chance to throw out Chone Figgins at home, but instead jogged several steps toward the dugout before cutting off his brain fart. Too late.

Jayson Nix did his best to get the Sox back in the game, hitting a three-run homer on the first pitch off Ervin Santana.

Unfortunately, he couldn’t come through a second time. With one out in the third, the Sox loaded the bases on a walk, single and Paul Konerko taking a pitch to the kidney. Mark Kotsay drew a walk to make it a 6-4 game, but Nix watched a slider over the heart of the plate for the second out. Chris Getz could not pick him up, chopping back to the mound to end the inning.

Sox rallies seemed to run out of steam after that. Dewayne Wise picked up a run with a ninth-inning homer.

Making matters worse, Octavio Dotel threw only 12 of 26 pitches for strikes, and wasted a rare pickoff by giving up an RBI single anyway. Also, a kid got nailed by Howie Kendrick’s bat.

Record: 56-53 | Box score | Play-by-play

August 5: White Sox 6, Angels 2

This type of game is a White Sox tradition — a strong start bolstered by a couple of big homers.  It’s the simple formula that works.

Gavin Floyd threw eight terrific innings and actually got a win to show for it. Jim Thome shouldered the load for the offense, hitting a pair of opposite-field homers.  His second was a three-run shot that broke open the game.

Thome came to the plate with runners on first and third and nobody out. Mike Scioscia pulled Sean O’Sullivan in favor of left-hander Darren Oliver.  The Gentleman Masher punished Scioscia for that decision, blasting his second opposite-field shot of the night to give the Sox a 5-2 lead.

Gavin Floyd made sure the lead stood up, even though his defense made more mistakes than Floyd did:

*Jermaine Dye let an inning-ending Vladimir Guerrero line drive skim off his mitt. It’s unclear whether he lost it in the lights, but either way, it allowed Bobby Abreu to score from first. Guerrero made it to third on the error, but Floyd stranded him there by getting Juan Rivera to pop out.

*Jayson Nix made an inexplicably errant throw on a grounder to short, allowing Rivera to reach and put runners on first and second with nobody out. Floyd erased the mistake with a 4-6-3 double play.

*A.J. Pierzynski once again let a third strike get past him. A down-and-in (but catchable) curve made its way back to the screen, and Morales made it to first safely. Floyd erased the mistake with a 4-6-3 double play.

*Paul Konerko took his eye off a Chone Figgins grounder — perhaps in an effort to turn a 3-6-3 double play. He ended up deflecting it to Chris Getz, who got it back to Konerko in time, but Paul Shrieber called him safe. Perhaps it was a makeup call, as Konerko got credit for tagging out a diving Erick Aybar when the replay showed he missed.

Floyd had to do a little more work to pitch around the third error of the game, but he got the job done. Maicer Izturis tapped weakly in front of the plate to freeze Gary Matthews Jr. at third, and Floyd struck out Abreu with a beautiful inside-half fastball.

Floyd departed after allowing a pair of singles to start the ninth, and one would come around to score on a sac fly.  It wouldn’t spoil his night, though, one in which he struck out six batters and induced three double plays.

At least Nix and Konerko atoned for their errors.  Nix picked up Getz — who struck out on a bogus called third strike — by scoring a runner on third with a flare to right field.  Konerko hit his 21st homer off Brian Fuentes in the ninth inning, putting the game outside of a slam.

Record: 56-52 | Box score | Play-by-play