2007 State of the Sox

June 27: White Sox 5, Devil Rays 3

Considering all the rumors surrounding Mark Buehrle since the Sun-Times stated that he and the Sox were close to an extension this morning, his start tonight seemed more like an afterthought.  If a deal is coming, he may have spoiled a chance to wring a few extra dollars out of Kenny Williams.

But here's the interesting thing -- he was off his game, and yet still got the win.  That's almost unheard of this year.

Buehrle was, in a word, sloppy.  He foreshadowed some turbulence when he left the bases loaded in the second after retiring the first two hitters, including a walk of former White Sox Raul Casanova, who's best remembered for being one of the most charged up in the champagne celebrations for achievements he barely contributed to.

He hit Carlos Pena with the bases loaded and two outs in the third for the Rays' first run.  He gave up three singles in the fourth, leading to another run.  He gave up another run in the fifth, assisted by a Scott Podsednik error after a single.  He was hit hard and didn't have great control of the strike zone... yet only gave up three runs over seven innings.

Even more amazing was the fact that the White Sox offense, which was absolutely dormant for the first six innings against Rays rookie Andy Sonnenstine, actually scored enough to give Buehrle the win.  And to top it all off, the bullpen actually held the lead, pitching multiple scoreless innings for the second straight game.

Josh Fields put the first run on the board by ripping a sharp single to left, followed a couple batters later by a ducksnort RBI single by Alex Cintron to make it a one-run game.  An inning later, Scott Podsednik led off with a "triple" -- it was a single, but Carl Crawford couldn't handle the short-hop, and it got past him -- and Andy Gonzalez tied it up with a single through the left side.  Jim Thome singled, and after they both advanced a base on a wild pitch, Paul Konerko drove them both in with a chopper double just over third base.

When Mike MacDougal came in to try to preserve the lead, he made it look like Rob Mackowiak's strikeout with a runner on third and one out was going to come back to bite him.  MacDougal walked two batters -- including Casanova again, leading off the inning, and needed Boone Logan to help him get out of the inning.  Logan sawed off Carl Crawford, but a harmless bloop nearly turned into trouble when Juan Uribe collided with Cintron going after the ball.  Cintron held on, and Bobby Jenks would do the same an inning later to give the Sox their first series win in over a month.

Record: 32-42 | Box score | Play-by-play