July 28: White Sox 6, Mariners 5
Power brought the White Sox back, and power closed this game out. As a result, the White Sox won their third straight game, and one they probably shouldn’t have been in considering the way it started.
Seattle scored all five of its runs over the first two innings. Mark Buehrle had some bad luck (Franklin Gutierrez’s RBI single came on a pretty good pitch), bad defense (Chone Figgins stole home after Buehrle picked off Russell Branyan at first), and bad pitches (Figgins hit his first homer of the season on a slider that worked its way over the heart of the plate).
The Sox found ways to punch back, though. They still trailed 5-3 after an Alex Rios single in the first and a two-run Gordon Beckham homer in the second, but those runs prevented Seattle from truly grabbing hold of the game. Buehrle eventually settled down, and offense got him off the hook in the fifth when Alexei Ramirez and Paul Konerko hit solo shots to tie the game.
Buehrle only lasted five innings, but that was good enough to set up the bullpen to Ozzie Guillen’s preference. Sergio Santos, Matt Thornton (who was shaky) and J.J. Putz combined to throw three scoreless innings, and the Seattle bullpen couldn’t keep the Sox off the board.
Jamey Wright walked Juan Pierre to lead off the inning, and Pierre stole second — barely. Ramirez bunted him to third, and Rios bounced a single through the drawn-in infield for what would turn out to be the game-winning run.
Bobby Jenks took advantage of his shot at redemption, striking out the side with serious heat (Comcast registered one fastball at 99 m.p.h.). It was his first 1-2-3, three-K save since 2006.
Record: 56-44 | Box score | Play-by-play | Highlights
Comments
The sequence that led to the lead–ultimately winning–run looked like Guillen’s vision played out in technicolor.
As I think he’s said, he’s not against home runs, just that station-to-station baseball that was so frustrating in the past.