2007 State of the Sox

June 1: White Sox 3, Blue Jays 0

This is more like it.

Javier Vazquez pitched eight scoreless innings, Bobby Jenks pitched for the only the second time in 11 days and the Sox came up with a few timely hits, cutting the losing streak at five games.  When Jenks recorded the final out of the inning, the Sox coaches embraced and did a four-way boogie similar to the Dance of Joy.

Vazquez picked up his first win in his last eight starts, and only his third over his last 20.  There were only a few hard-hit balls, and Jermaine Dye made a couple nice plays to turn them into outs -- a running grab of a Frank Thomas liner in the second, and he threw out Jason Phillips trying to stretch a single into a double.  Sure, Phillips may be the one guy who's slower than Paul Konerko, but Dye still tracked it down by the wall, picked it up with his bare hand, spun and fired with one motion just in time to get Phillips at second.

Tadahito Iguchi and Juan Uribe also turned a nice double play to erase a walk.

For the second straight game, the Sox didn't have to see any of their struggling middle relievers, and that was due to Vazquez excelling not only beyond 75 pitches, but beyond 110.  He even pitched out of a late jam when the Blue Jays put runners on the corners with two outs after a double and an infield single (on a good pitch).  Ozzie visited the mound, left without taking action, and Lyle Overbay flew out to right-center to end the inning.

Vazquez's final line:  8 IP, 2 H, 2 BB, 5 K.  Maybe he likes pitching at the Rogers Centre -- he struck out 13 there last year, in a game I was lucky enough to see.

Speaking of 13 strikeouts, that's exactly how many A.J. Burnett racked up against the Sox tonight.  He threw his fair share of pitches to the backstop, but when he hit the strike zone, the Sox struggled to put the bat on the ball.  At one point, it seemed like they would settle for whatever contact they could find -- in the sixth inning, the Sox may have set a new season low by only seeing five pitches.

Fortunately, their hits clumped together a couple times.  Three consecutive hits broke the Sox's 17-inning scoreless streak when Juan Uribe singled, Jerry Owens (making his first start) doubled, and after a run-scoring wild pitch, Tadahito Iguchi singled to give the Sox a 2-0 lead. 

Owens would come up big later when he hit a one-out infield single, stole second and scored on Iguchi's second RBI single, a half-swinging, opposite-field one to provide a key extra insurance run. 

Fortunately, Jenks wouldn't need it, setting down the Blue Jays 1-2-3.  I'm not sure if the Rogers SportsNet gun was fast, but it clocked Jenks' fastball at 98 m.p.h., the first time I've seen that all year.

Record: 25-25 | Box score | Play-by-play