State of the Sox 2009

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 20: Royals 2, White Sox 1

If Jermaine Dye ever had an occasion to break out of his slump with style, it was with the bases loaded against Joakim Soria in the eighth inning.

Soria loaded the bases with a walk to Alexei Ramirez, bringing Dye and his 4-for-35 slump to the plate.

It ended with a medium-range flyout to right. So much for redemption.

The game ended in equally disheartening fashion, with pinch-running Dewayne Wise gunned down at second on an unsuccessful stolen base attempt. You could see the strategy in it — Scott Podsednik isn’t likely to drive anybody in from first, and Gordon Beckham’s slumping pretty badly himself.

But that didn’t work either. Not much did against Robinson Tejeda and the Kansas City pitching staff today, outside of Scott Podsednik and A.J. Pierzynski. They combined for four of the team’s six hits, and Pierzynski drove in Podsednik (after Pods stole his 28th base) for the lone run of the game.

Carlos Quentin had a chance with the bases loaded following that series of events, but he faltered as well. The Sox stranded eight on the day.

It wasted a terrific effort by Freddy Garcia, who allowed a single run in the first (wild pitch) and third (RBI single) innings and nothing after. He finished his day by retiring the last nine he faced.

Record: 73-77 | Box score | Play-by-play

September 18: Royals 11, White Sox 0

Mark Buehrle had never walked three consecutive batters before.

That’s how the Royals’ first run crossed the plate, and that’s all the offense they needed as the Sox lineup — with no Jermaine Dye, Alex Rios or Carlos Quentin — managed only three singles.

And only one of them left the infield. Luke Hochevar was simply too much.

Miguel Olivo — who has 14 walks to 119 strikeouts this season — drew the bases-loaded walk, and tossed two homers and five more RBI on top of his evening.

Jhonny Nunez gave up four runs and couldn’t get out of the eighth. Dan Hudson gave up his first big-league homer to John Buck in the ninth.  Awesome.

Record: 72-76 | Box score | Play-by-play

September 16: Mariners 4, White Sox 1

On the first pitch of the game, Ichiro Suzuki laced a double to left-center.

Yet it was the second pitch — a strike to Franklin Gutierrez — that carried the bad omen. Floyd did a baby hop off the mound, and would do it on just about every other pitch.

He managed to strike out Gutierrez on a good curve, but he had trouble missing bats the rest of the night. His slider lacked movement, his fastball was a tick slower, and the Mariners hit him all around the yard.

Floyd lasted only three innings, and left the game with a sore left hip.  So there you go.

It was a minor miracle that the Sox only trailed 3-0 by the time Floyd left, although Jermaine Dye made a great throw from right to end the first inning by catching Adrian Beltre trying to stretch an RBI single to a double.  A Mike Carp solo homer off D.J. Carrasco would be the only one allowed by Sox relievers in five innings of work.

But it didn’t matter, because the Sox didn’t want to hit a man with glasses.

The begoggled Ryan Rowland-Smith, making his first-ever appearance, shut down the Sox despite an unimpressive selection of offerings.  Really, the only pitch that he had was a straight change that didn’t have a lot of movement. But the Sox, who were trying to pull the fastball, couldn’t stay back on the off-speed stuff long enough to make it hurt.

Gordon Beckham’s solo homer in the eighth inning was the only form of offense the Sox could mount. A couple other promising rallies were cut short.

In the second, the Sox had two on and one out after a pair of singles. Carlos Quentin then ended the inning on the first pitch he saw, rollowing over on an outer-half fastball for a 6-4-3 double play.

Quentin then singled in his next at-bat on a bloop to right, but he thought it would get away from a sliding Ichiro. He ended up corralling it rather easily, and Quentin was dead meat between first and second.

The Sox had the first two hitters reach in the seventh, and they advanced one base on Quentin’s deep fly to right. But Alex Rios, who had two singles, tapped out to the catcher, and Jayson Nix struck out swinging to end the threat.

One bright spot: Carrasco struck out Ichiro on a ball in the dirt, and the ball caromed off A.J. Pierzynski’s shinguard and up the first base line. Because Ichiro didn’t react right away, Carrasco could take his time on the throw to first, recording the rare K 1-3.

Record: 72-74 | Box score | Play-by-play

September 11: Angels 7, White Sox 1

Joe Saunders shut down the Sox, with the exception of Jayson Nix, who homered for the third time in four at-bats off the Angel lefty.

Gavin Floyd didn’t shut down the Angels.

Alas.

Record: 70-72 | Box score | Play-by-play

September 6: Red Sox 6, White Sox 1

It was just three days ago that Scott Podsednik started off the game by reaching second base with nobody out, then getting doubled up thanks to some dumbassed baserunning.

So you’d think that particular event would be so fresh in his memory that he wouldn’t do it again.

Apparently not.

Podsednik slapped a bunt to shortstop for a single, then stole second on Jon Lester and Victor Martinez. After Jayson Nix walked, Paul Konerko hit a dying quail to short right, behind first base.

Now, Dustin Pedroia made a terrific play. He made a sprinting catch, needing every bit of speed and reach to snag it.  He then had the werewithal to spin and throw to second, on the off-chance that Podsednik had strayed too far from the bag.

We know there’s no “off chance” about it. Podsednik was two-thirds of the way to third when Pedroia made the catch, and had no way to get back. It was yet another awful double play, and the offense never mounted a similar thread off Jon Lester for the rest of his start.

Lester was good, throwing seven shutout innings and eclipsing the 200-strikeout mark with eight of them.  He also happened to be better than John Danks.

Danks met the minimum for a quality start, but some long early innings kept his day abbreviated. One swing by Mike Lowell altered the course of his day, as his towering fly landed five feet into the White Sox bullpen for a two-run homer, giving the Red Sox all the runs they would need. A Jason Bay RBI single in the fifth gave them a key two-out run.

Ramon Castro prevented the Sox from getting shut out by hitting a no-doubter off Billy Wagner, but Octavio Dotel made the game uninteresting just as quickly. With two outs in the eighth, he gave up a three-run shot to Victor Martinez that kept Sox fans from watching Jonathan Papelbon take 20 seconds with an O-face to decide to throw another fastball.

Note: Alex Rios struck out three times in three plate appearances, even though he was ahead 3-0 in every instance.

Record: 68-70 | Box score | Play-by-play

August 31: Twins 4, White Sox 1

Nick Blackburn recorded his last victory on July 10 against the White Sox.

Since then: 38 1/3 IP, 66 H, 38 R 10 HR, 9 BB, 14 K.

Tonight: 7 IP, 6 H, 1 R, 0 BB, 7 K.

That’s all that needs to be said about the White Sox offense.

Gavin Floyd pitched well, too, but one bad half-inning killed him. With two outs, he ran into the left-handed buzzsaw of Joe Mauer, Justin Morneau and Jason Kubel. Mauer cranked a homer, Morneau singled, and Jason Kubel drilled a low fastball over the right-center fence for a 3-0 lead.

Otherwise, it was another quality start that went unsupported.

Record: 64-68 | Box score | Play-by-play