State of the Sox 2009

September 25: White Sox 2, Tigers 0

Briefly:

*Jake Peavy survived a flurry of weak singles to throw seven scoreless innings, getting two double-play balls. He was late covering on a 3-6-1 double play, but made up for it by turning a 1-6-3 later on.

*Jermaine Dye made a great play on one of the only hard-hit balls of the night, crashing against the fence to take a double (or more) away from Curtis Granderson.

*Gordon Beckham broke up Eddie Bonine’s no-hitter and shutout with a two-run shot.  It came with two outs and after a Brandon Inge error, so both runs were unearned.

*Matt Thornton walked Carlos Guillen with two outs, but was able to record his first save since Bobby Jenks went down for the year.

Record: 74-80 | 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 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 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 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 10: Mariners 6, White Sox 4

Note: k8t wrote this recap.

The latest episode of “Rookie Pitcher Hassles The White Sox” featured a different storyline, but the same old ending. After four shutout innings on both sides, former Sox Ken Griffey Jr. of all people hit the two-run single that got the Mariners on the board, and the hits just kept coming for both sides.

The fifth inning proved most crucial for the Good Guys with a double by Carlos Quentin (his first of two on the night) and a walk by Jayson Nix, which set up Ramon Castro’s game-tying two-run double.

Unfortunately for the Sox and Gavin Floyd, they couldn’t cut off the offense. In the bottom of the fifth, after walking Michael Saunders (who then promptly stole second), Floyd gave up a single that scored another run. Floyd got himself out of the jam and the Sox picked him up the next inning.

Luke French, the Mariner rookie had reached his limit and walked Gordon Beckham and Jermaine Dye back to back. After striking out Jim Thome, he walked Paul Konerko, too. That was it for French, who was replaced by Sean White. Quentin doubled for the second time of the game to score both Gordon Beckham and Dye.

That was it for Floyd, too. After starting his half of the inning with another single to Griffey, Jr. (promptly thrown out in the first half of a double play), Floyd gave up a home run on the worst pitch of the season to date — an 0-2 fastball in the strike zone to Russell Branyan — and the White Sox lost the lead for good. One at-bat later after walking Jack Wilson, Floyd received a visit to the mound and found the bench for the remainder of the game. That would have been fine, except Tony Pena entered the game and gave up a two-run dinger to the first batter he saw, Kenji Johjima.

It could have been worse considering during the first four shutout innings, Scott Podsednik got picked off at first and Nix ended up out in a double play because he made a mental mistake, strayed too far away from first base on a fly ball and couldn’t get back in time. However, the damage was contained, all things considered.

Scott Linebrink entered the game and had a 1-2-3 inning composed of a strikeout and two groundouts. Mariners relievers posted zeroes, themselves. For the most part, the Sox stayed even with the Mariners and if it hadn’t been for that crucial sixth inning, this story may have ended differently.

Record:57-56 | Box score | Play-by-play