On one hand, when Darin Erstad and Jerry Owens have to face a lefty with two outs in the bottom of the ninth and both manage to reach base, they should get credit for it, no matter how weak the hits are.
On the other hand, the Sox blew so many other situations that it's difficult to muster up one ounce of compassion for them.
And so it goes, with the Sox dropping their third straight when Jerry Owens was called out on a dribbler to short that he barely beat out.
Juan Uribe started the last-chance rally with arguably his most disciplined at-bat of the year. He started by watching Alan Embree throw the first three pitches out of the zone. Knowing the Sox needed a baserunner, he watched the next two fastballs for strikes. Embree threw one more heater on the outer half, and Uribe went with it, slashing it down the right field line for a double.
He'd score when a pinch-hitting Darin Erstad hit a duck-snort single that fell between Donnie Murphy and Mark Kotsay, but the game would end one at-bat later.
Of course, had Andy Gonzalez been able to cut off a single, or Josh Fields been able to hold onto a relay throw, that could have tied the game at 3. And if the Sox took advantage of any number of opportunities before that, they would've owned a lead.
Jon Garland pitched a pretty good game, but Jack Cust (twice) and Murphy capitalized on his few mistakes for solo homers. Still, Oakland only held a 3-2 lead after Josh Fields hit a monster solo shot in the top of the sixth when Nick Swisher came to the plate with one out.
Swisher lined a ball to the left-center gap, but with McAfee Coliseum's expansive outfielder, Andy Gonzalez (playing his completely natural position of center field) failed to take a wide enough angle to cut the ball off. What should've been a single -- or maybe a stretched double if Swisher was running hard all the way -- turned into a triple when a sliding Swisher knocked the ball out of Fields' mitt. The relay throw made it in plenty of time, but Fields appeared to snow-cone the ball before the tag.
Swisher scored on a sacrifice fly, and that would prove to be the key insurance run.
And that run mattered because the Sox offense couldn't figure out what to do when it put runners into scoring position:
In the fourth inning, the Sox had runners on first and second with nobody out. Jim Thome then grounded into a 4-6-3 double play, and Paul Konerko grounded out to third to end the inning.
In the fifth, Jermaine Dye was on third after Uribe singled home a run with one out. Danny Richar tapped back to the pitcher, though, and Dye was eventually (barely) tagged out after a rundown.
One inning later, Jim Thome misread a ball in the dirt from second base with one out. Kurt Suzuki fired back to second, and Thome hung himself out to dry.
That's why it's hard to feel sorry for this team. And that's why it's laughable to think that
they still consider themselves in contention.
Record: 54-64 |
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