July 24: A’s 10, White Sox 2
The less said about this one, the better.
Considering Freddy Garcia threw a miracle quality start in his last outing, his uppance may have come today. He allowed five runs on six hits and three walks over 1 1/3 innings.
The end of the first inning showed what kind of day he had in store. He was down 1-0 with the bases loaded and nobody out, and almost worked his way out of it with no further damage done. He struck out Kevin Kouzmanoff and Mark Ellis, and got a weak nubber off Gabe Gross’ bat. But Omar Vizquel couldn’t come up with it, another run scored, and Garcia’s day only got worse from there.
His teammates tried picking him up. Juan Pierre flagged down a deep fly in the gap that saved three runs to end the first, and Ramon Castro tied the game with a two-run shot, but they couldn’t re-energize him.
Castro’s homer didn’t do much for the Sox offense, either, which was limited to just four hits by Viz Mazzaro and company. This game scraped bottom in the sixth inning, when Alex Rios walked to lead off the inning, and Paul Konerko, Carlos Quentin and Mark Kotsay struck out in order.
But even Rios couldn’t escape this game unscathed. In the fourth inning, he failed to run down Kouzmanoff’s deep fly to left-center. He could’ve got there in time, but he kinda pulled up and didn’t leave his feet, either. He may have seen Juan Pierre out of the corner of his eye, but that’s his ball.
Record: 53-43 | Box score | Play-by-play
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