July 6: White Sox 4, Angels 1
In 34 2/3 innings against the White Sox in his career, Jered Weaver had allowed two runs. So when Jake Peavy left the game in the second inning with a scary-looking lat injury, it looked like another cakewalk in the making.
Nope. Instead, the Sox played the kind of game that makes you think there’s something to this season after all, with a struggling arm and a struggling bat providing the biggest lift.
Staked to a 1-0 lead in the second, Peavy had just picked off Torii Hunter to get the second out of the inning. On a 2-2 count to Hideki Matsui, Peavy delivered a fastball — and his night was over. His arm dangled at a strange angle as he paced around the field, and ultimately toward the dugout. Herm Schneider would escort him off the field.
Pressed into action with zero notice, Tony Pena ended up “walking” Matsui (it was charged to Peavy). But he held the Angels to one run over 4 1/3 innings, getting two key double plays to make it happen.
While Pena held down the Angels, the Sox offense began to form a cohesive attack against a guy who had puzzled them for years.
Their first run was a fluke — Juan Pierre dropped a double, stole third and scored on an Alex Rios sac fly. The rest were well deserved.
One batter after Eric Cooper erroneously called Alexei Ramirez out on what should’ve been an infield single in the sixth, Alex Rios blasted a homer deep into the night to make it a 2-1 game. One inning later, Andruw Jones — on a hanging changeup to end all hanging changeups — did the same for a two-run lead.
Weaver wouldn’t retire another batter. Dayan Viciedo ripped a single, Brent Lillibridge rattled a double off the wall (he held up one arm like he thought it was out), and a Pierre nubber scored Viciedo to make it a 4-1 game.
Kevin Jepsen struck out Ramirez and Rios to prevent a fifth run from scoring, but an excellent effort behind Pena made it stand up.
J.J. Putz was dominant in his inning of work, and Matt Thornton pitched around two singles by getting Bobby Abreu and Torii Hunter to pop out. Bobby Jenks closed it out, pitching around a single and another bad relay toss on what should’ve been a double play by Brent Lillibridge, for his first save since June 24.
Pena earned the win, in every sense of the word.
Record: 44-38 | Box score | Play-by-play
Comments
I think what you call fluke is the atypical pull by Pierre that surprised Hunter (who had a less than an all-star-caliber game last night!). The rest of the sequence that produced the run seemed to go according to the 2010 script.