If you're as numb to the losses as I am, the eighth inning was pretty damn funny.
First, you had Mike Myers entering the game for the sole purpose of facing Travis Hafner. He walked Pronk on four pitches. But wait -- Myers has had far more success against right-handed batters anyway, so let's see how he handles Victor Martinez. Oops, Victor singled.
Then Mike MacDougal came in and got the ground ball he needed from Ryan Garko -- except it took an insane hop off the lip of the infield, kicking both high and to the right past Juan Uribe. And that's when the meltdown truly began.
MacDougal couldn't find the strike zone -- he threw four straight balls to the slumping Jhonny Peralta, and followed that up with four more to walk Kenny Lofton and bring home the tying run. On the 2-0 pitch to Lofton that home plate umpire John Hirschbeck thought was high, MacDougal showed his disgust with the umpire. It's hard to blame Hirschbeck though, since the previous six pitches probably warped the idea of what the actual strike zone was.
He finally got ahead of Casey Blake 1-2, but Blake laid off the next two pitches before doubling to right. He finished his night by walking Asdrubal Cabrera on four pitches, for a grand total of 18 balls out of the 25 pitches he threw.
Boone Logan, who Ozzie should have gone to instead of Myers, got Grady Sizemore to fly out weakly to Darin Erstad to end the inning.
At this point, losses aren't a bad thing -- if they're going to be this pathetic, they may as well get the No. 1 draft pick for their troubles. However, it would've been nice for Mark Buehrle to get credit for his 10th win, since he deserved it.
It was a classic Buehrle outing -- fast-paced, efficient and under control. He only allowed four hits -- three of them came in the sixth inning, when he allowed two runs. Even then, none of those singles were hit all that authoritatively.
Peralta owned the two hardest-hit balls of the night off Buehrle. One ended up caught by Jerry Owens on the warning track, and a hard grounder down the third-base line was picked cleanly by Andy Gonzalez, who rose and fired in time to get Peralta by half a step. After a three-error night Thursday, Gonzalez played a perfect game in this one.
The Sox offense actually managed to score all five runs without a home run, and they should've had more. They loaded the bases off Fausto Carmona in the first inning, but Jermaine Dye, A.J. Pierzynski and Gonzalez each struck out swinging.
They finally broke through in the fourth, when Danny Richar singled Jerry Owens doubled just inside the left-field line. Josh Fields drove home one run with an RBI groundout, and Dye singled through the left side. The Sox added three more an inning later, when Erstad scored all the way from first on a hit-and-run single by Juan Uribe because Franklin Gutierrez had no idea where the ball was. Fields hit a sac fly, and Jim Thome landed a broken-bat single in short left to give the Sox a 5-0 lead.
Record: 57-77 |
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