Thursday's game was my first chance to watch the White Sox play since they were pantsed by the Cubs on a suicide squeeze on Saturday. The next day, I flew to San Diego on a business trip. A friend picked me up at the airport, and we went to the Padres-Red Sox game, which was already in the third inning when we arrived. I learned the bad news about the shutout and the sweep on the right-field scoreboard at Petco Park.
While on that trip, I missed the first three games of this series against the Devil Rays. I don't want to put down the Rays too much, but they should be concerned that they did not manage to score off the White Sox bullpen in 10 innings over four games. If all it took was me going to San Diego and then having some travel nightmares in the Dallas and Nashville airports to turn the Sox bullpen around, well, then it was all worth it. I'm glad that my return to town didn't jinx the winning streak, which reached four games with a 5-1 victory that completed a four-game sweep in St. Petersburg.
I would prefer seeing Scott Podsednik sit against a tough lefty like Scott Kazmir, but with Jermaine Dye sitting out to rest his quadraceps, White Sox manager Ozzie Guillén doesn't have enough right-handed-hitting outfielders to go around. That's no excuse for starting A.J. Pierzynski, however. Toby Hall could have started Sunday against Cubs lefty Sean Marshall, too, but he didn't. Hall did start against J.P. Howell on Monday. Pierzynski would say that he can't hit lefties if he doesn't get enough plate appearances against them. I would say that any plate appearances against lefites are too many for Pierzynski. (Hall could make the argument that he's simply not getting enough playing time to get going himself.) To be fair, Pierzynski did battle Kazmir in their second encounter before Pierzynski, as he had done the first time, tapped out weakly to short. He struck out in his third at-bat against him.
Overall, however, the White Sox did a nice job of wearing down Kazmir, forcing him to throw 114 pitches over 5-1/3 innings. He doesn't have particularly good control, as evidenced by his 4.5 walks/9 innings pitched performance this season and in
his career, and he has thrown 4.07 pitches per plate appearances.
Javier Vázquez, on the other hand, was more economical with his pitches, throwing seven innings and allowing just one run. He was particularly sharp with his off-speed pitches, primarily the curve ball and the change-up. When he ran into trouble in the third, fifth and sixth innings, he managed to avoid the crippling mistake pitches that Sox fans came to dread last season.
Paul Konerko continued his climb out of the very deep hole he dug himself through May 13, when he had a 617 OPS. He was at 897 OPS going into Thursday's game, and went over 900 with two solo home runs and a single in five at-bats. Tadahito Iguchi had a homer, a triple and a walk. On his triple, I thought, "Jonny Gomes is not out there for his glove." And he proved the point further when he allowed Josh Fields's jam shot to fall in for a single knocking in Iguchi. If the infield isn't playing in, it's possible that the second baseman makes the play, but if Gomes is a better outfielder, he hauls that one in. If Delmon Young were still playing right field, I believe he would have caught it, although he made an error, his fifth, playing center field.
I'm not sure why this game wasn't played at an hour more convenient to both teams. The Sox were scheduled to fly after the game to Kansas City for a three-game series, while the Rays had to fly to Cleveland. At least the White Sox boarded their plane happy.
This isn't normally part of State of the Sox, but I have to mention that Frank Thomas hit his 500th career home run today in Minnesota. Congratulations to Thomas, who will always be my favorite Sox player.
Record: 33-42 |
Box score |
Play-by-play