September 28: White Sox 6, Indians 1
From the lackluster lineups to the lack of an upper deck, this game had all the makings of a Triple-A affair.
John Danks dominated accordingly, throwing his first major-league complete game while posting the best game score of his career. The previous high: You guessed it, Game 163.
His least-favorite inning was the only thing that bit him. With a 2-0 count on Shin-Shoo Choo, Danks grooved a fastball on the inside half, and Choo Choo-Choo-Chose to knock it into the right-field seats to cut the lead to 3-1.
Otherwise, Danks’ night was almost as easy at it gets. He allowed just three hits and a walk while striking out seven. He pitched around the walk by inducing a double play, and he did the same after a Brent Lillibridge error in the seventh.
The offense? Yeah, that looked a little more bush-league.
The Sox scored three off Aaron Laffey despite their best efforts after loading the bases with singles by Alex Rios, Josh Fields and Tyler Flowers with one out.
Jayson Nix struck out looking — which would turn out to be his first of two backwards K’s with the sacks packed — and Laffey just needed to get past Lillibridge and his zero RBI to escape the inning unscathed. Lillibridge hit a 60-foot chopper to third, but Jhonny Peralta couldn’t handle it cleanly. Rios scored, Lillibridge was given an infield single, and thus he drove in his first run of the season.
Dewayne Wise was then clipped on the jersey on his first pitch for a 2-0 lead, and he would beat Asdrubal Cabrera to second on a grounder up the middle to score a third run.
The Sox wouldn’t score again until the ninth inning, and they did so with a little more authority off Jensen Lewis, who made the mistake of walking Lillibridge to start things off.
Wise got him to third on a hit-and-run single, and Gordon Beckham doubled them both in with a laser off the base of the wall in left. Beckham would score on Paul Konerko’s single, although it took a wild throw home to accomplish that.
Record: 75-81 | Box score | Play-by-play
