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

September 12: White Sox 4, Angels 3 (10 innings)

If the White Sox can’t make wins look easy anymore, then we’re all screwed.

They held a 3-0 lead entering the eighth with their best relievers — Matt Thornton and Bobby Jenks — tanned, rested and ready. They finished the game in the 10th, clinging to a one-run lead with Tony Pena, of all people, attempting to rack up the save.

Thornton started the ruination of a perfectly good win opportunity for John Danks by allowing four straight singles — good for two runs — in the eighth inning. He could only retire one batter, and needed Jenks to clean up his mess.  Jenks did so in one pitch, getting Juan Rivera to ground into a double play immediately.

Then Jenks ran into his own problem, giving up a nine-pitch leadoff walk to Gary Matthews. He went to third on Kendry Morales’ single and scored on Maicer Izturis’ sac fly. Just like that, the game was tied.

Thank goodness for Scott Podsednik.

Podsednik led off the top of the 10th with a double to the right-center gap off Brian Fuentes. Gordon Beckham singled him to third, but A.J. Pierzynski couldn’t score him, flying out to shallow center and keeping Podsednik at third.

Kevin Jepsen came in to face pinch-hitting Paul Konerko, and it looked like Pods would be stranded at third when Jepsen got ahead 0-2.  But he bounced a slider that skipped past Mike Napoli, and Podsednik came around to score the winning run.

Of course, the Sox wouldn’t end it without drama. Randy Williams got ahead on Bobby Abreu 1-2, then walked him without challenging him. Reggie Willits bunted him over (thank you), and Ozzie Guillen called for Pena. Pena got Torii Hunter to ground out, but it looked like Oakland all over again when Rivera bounced a single back through the middle.

This one was hit a little slower than the one Kurt Suzuki knocked through for the game-tying run on Wednesday, and a diving Alexei Ramirez kept it in the infield. That saved the game, because Pena got Napoli to ground into a 4-3 to end it for his first save in a Sox uniform.

The game was closer than it should’ve been after the Sox built an early 3-0 lead through three innings. Gordon Beckham, the second batter of the game, took Ervin Santana deep for a solo shot over the left-center wall. In the third, Podsednik added one of his own — the hard way.

He hit a deep fly to right field, and sent Bobby Abreu up against the wall. Much like what happened to Pods in Oakland a couple years ago, the ball hit the wall, and then Abreu’s head on the way down. It ricocheted away from Abreu toward center, and with Hunter not backing up, Pods circled the bases for the first Sox inside-the-park homer since Joe Borchard’s.

John Danks, meanwhile, kept the Angels down despite pitch count issue. It’s a minor miracle that he got through six considering he had thrown 60something pitches through three. He didn’t have a traditional 1-2-3 inning, but he did benefit from two double plays. One was A.J. Pierzynski’s second strike-him-out-throw-him-out this week.

Unfortunately, the Sox failed to score a run in the sixth when, with runners on the corners and one out, Chris Getz hit a fly to shallow right. It wasn’t deep enough for Ramirez to score on it, but they tried anyway, and Ramirez was out by 15 feet.

Record: 71-72 | 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

August 12: Mariners 1, White Sox 0 (14 innings)

Note: k8t is pinch-hitting for this recap.

In the sprint to the finish line, it was the Seattle Mariners who arrived first. It was a game that started out in a typical Mark Buehrle speed, and ended 14 innings later on a walk off. Ken Griffey, Jr., in a pinch-hitting role, hit his two-out, RBI-single off of Tony Pena, and sent everybody home.

Before that fateful at-bat, it had been a pitcher’s duel between Buehrle and Felix Hernandez that had no end in sight until their managers pulled them out. Buehrle allowed six hits over eight innings while striking out three and walking one.

The game would have ended much sooner if it hadn’t been for Mark Kotsay in the bottom of the 12th. Kotsay dove to catch a fly ball from Rob Johnson, then scooted back to first base to send Jack Hannahan back to the bench and finish the solo double play. Carlos Quentin also made a sliding catch in left field to end the ninth inning.

In terms of offense, Kotsay, Jayson Nix and Scott Podsednik each had two hits, with Kotsay having the only extra base hit for the Sox (a double).

Podsednik nullified his contributions with the dumbest baserunning play of the year, getting picked off third by catcher Rob Johnson in the 10th with one out. It’s the second time he was picked off in the series.

The blunder ruined the best scoring opportunity in a game with few of them. In the top of the fifth, Nix got thrown out at home by Ichiro. In the seventh, Gordon Beckham hit into a double play to end that inning.

This game was one of for the record books. The Mariners had never held a scoreless tie for so long, and it was the longest scoreless tie for the White Sox since 1975.

Unfortunately, it overshadowed the debut of Alex Rios, who played right field in place of Jermaine Dye. Rios went one for six with two strikeouts.