Chad Gaudin held the White Sox in check during his first start against them
April 10. He thoroughly dominated the Sox this time around, and thus the Sox's three-game winning streak -- and offensive surge -- came to a crashing halt. Fortunately they'll have an off day tomorrow to lick their wounds.
Sox hitters couldn't do anything right against Gaudin the first seven innings. Twice the leadoff hitter reached with a base hit, and twice they were quickly erased -- Darin Erstad with a double play in the first inning, and Jermaine Dye when he was thrown out easily trying to stretch a single into a double. Otherwise, the Sox didn't make a peep, and Gaudin faced the minimum through six.
Only when Jim Thome walked with two outs in the seventh did Gaudin ruin his shot for 27 up, 27 down (though not in order). He did benefit from consecutive sliding/diving catches, but aside from that, it was all him.
When the Sox finally did pose a threat in the eighth, they couldn't finish the job. Back-to-back singles by A.J. Pierzynski and Juan Uribe put runners on first and second, but Pierzynski went back to tag up instead of standing halfway on Rob Mackowiak's deep flyball to right that bounced off the fence. After seeing Nick Swisher mistime his jump, Pierzynski could only make it to third.
Still, they had the bases loaded with one out. But this is when the thin Sox bench -- hidden by surprising performances in three straight games -- began to show its weakness. Pablo Ozuna came in to hit for Alex Cintron and promptly tapped back to Jay Marshall, who went home for one. Darin Erstad, facing a lefty designed to get lefties out, did the usual 4-3, and that was that.
I probably would've batted Luis Terrero instead of Ozuna for Cintron, and then bat Ozuna for Erstad, but each option is pretty sad.
Meanwhile, Jon Garland wasn't as sharp as he was in previous starts, but as it would turn out, he lost the game in the first thanks to some miscommunication in the infield. With a normal defensive alignment, Swisher hit a insignificant grounder to the shortstop with a runner on first. But with the infield skewed to the right and Uribe covering second, there was confusion about whether Cintron or Uribe would get it. As it turns out, nobody did, and the non-error error would help the A's score their first run.
Otherwise, Oakland dinked Garland to death. Hiram Bocachica's nail-in-the-coffin homer in the seventh was the only extra-base hit Garland allowed all night. The nine other hits off Garland were mainly of the "where they ain't" variety, and the Sox made some nice defensive plays to keep that number from growing.
Tadahito Iguchi made a nice 4-3 double play by snaring a liner and later made a nice running catch towards the right-field line, and Garland added to
his Gold Glove case by handling bunts with excellent range to his left and right. The latter was a diving catch of a popped-up bunt just outside the chalk on the third-base line.
If there's one redeeming thing that came from this game, it was the 2 2/3 scoreless innings thrown by Matt Thornton and David Aardsma, the first time the bullpen didn't allow a run since
May 17.
Record: 23-20 |
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