June 24: White Sox 2, Braves 0

Posted by Jim Margalus on June 24th, 2010 | 1 comment

For the third straight start, Gavin Floyd pitched a nearly perfect game. For the third straight time, Floyd not receive the win.

But hey — for the second straight time, at least the Sox came away with the win, and it came courtesy of a late Paul Konerko homer.  The White Sox extended their winning streak to nine.

Floyd allowed just three baserunners all day long, retiring 14 in a row at one point as he had all pitches working.  Only one time did a runner reach scoring position, when Chipper Jones singled, advanced to second on a groundout and made third on a wild pitch, all with two outs.  Floyd walked Troy Glaus (his only walk of the day), but came back to strike out Eric Hinske, his ninth and final K.

Unfortunately, he had to be that good, as the Sox shot themselves in the foot against Derek Lowe.  They blew two golden opportunities, and A.J. Pierzynski was at the center of both.

In the bottom of the fourth, Alexei Ramirez led off with a double and Mark Kotsay walked.  Paul Konerko struck out, but Carlos Quentin took a pitch to the forearm to load the bases.

Pierzynski took ball one, fouled off ball two, and eventually looked at strike three, a tailing fastball that clipped the inside corner.  He slammed his bat into the ground, and could’ve been ejected for it.

Too bad he wasn’t, because in the bottom of the sixth, he came to the plate with runners on the corners (Kotsay double, Konerko flyball to right to get Kotsay to third, Quentin IBB).  He grounded into a 4-6-3 double play on the second pitch, after which he had another temper tantrum, slamming his helmet.

At least Konerko atoned for his earlier sins.  Juan Pierre led off the eighth with a single of Takashi Saito, and Ramirez (unwisely, probably) bunted him to second.  It looked like he might be stranded there when Kotsay flew out, but Konerko jumped on the first pitch he saw and sent a fastball well into the left field seats.  He took the first curtain call of the season afterwards, and it was well deserved.

J.J. Putz picked up the victory, and that wasn’t quite as richly deserved.  But he did pitch a 1-2-3 frame, and so did Bobby Jenks to close it out.

Record: 37-34 | Box score | Play-by-play

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

Comments

  1. On June 26, 2010 June 26: White Sox 3, Cubs 2 | State of the Sox 2010 says:

    [...] You should remember it, because it was just two days ago. [...]

You must be logged in to post a comment.