Before we delve into how the White Sox once again played poorly, let's
take a moment to tip the hat to Luis Terrero for
his performance tonight. He homered in his first
at-bat with the White Sox to provide a brief lead, then added an
outfield assist later in the game that saved a run when Richie Sexson
ran into an out.
I'm not sure how much more we can expect from a guy who
walked only one time in 65 at-bats at Triple-A, so let's acknowledge him now. That's an awful mug shot of Terrero, by the way, though he's
not the first Knight who can't bend his cap. Maybe those bills are reinforced with fiberglass.
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An interesting item to keep an eye on tomorrow -- right now, the Mariners and White Sox
are battling for the cellar in the category of extra-base hits.
The Mariners entered today's game with 56, the White Sox have 58, and
Seattle narrowed the gap to one with a 3-2 advantage tonight.
If that stat didn't suck enough, here's one that really puts it into
perspective: The Sox have three games up on Seattle, which saw an entire
series with Cleveland washed out.
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One of Seattle's extra-base hits came off the bat of
old friend Jamie Burke, who also walked to lead off the eighth, and is 6-for-16 on the young season.
On the Sox's side, A.J. Pierzynski has now worked all 24 games this
season, even though Jarrod Washburn, a lefty, started for Seattle.
A.J. managed to make a big contribution with a homer off the right-field foul pole
off Washburn, but he's going to need a day off eventually. One will
probably come tomorrow, seeing as it's a day game after a night game,
but that will force Gustavo Molina and his zero career major-league
hits against righty Miguel Batista.
Meanwhile, Wiki Gonzalez raised his average to .314 with two hits today, and is
6-for-10 off lefties in Charlotte so far.
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Minor league round-up:- Richmond 4, Charlotte 0
- I'm going to guess Gavin Floyd wasn't particularly sharp tonight -- 4 2/3 IP, 6 H, 4 ER, 2 BB, 1 K. He couldn't seem to close out the fifth after getting a double play. Corwin Malone managed to keep it scoreless the rest of the time.
- Kenny Kelly and the aforementioned Wiki were the only ones with more than a hit.
- Andy Gonzalez played center; Brian Anderson did not play. Josh Fields went 0-for-4, and is hitting .209.
- Potomac 9, Winston-Salem 7
- Justin Cassel suffered his first loss and rough start of the season, with a line nearly identical to Floyd's. He allowed more earned runs today (4) than he had in his previous four starts (3).
- Aaron Cunningham broke his hitless slump with his third triple of the year, and drew two walks.
- Daron Roberts hit his third homer of the year, a three-run shot.
- Kannapolis 8, Augusta 6
- Matt Long earned his third victory of the year with five innings of two-run ball.
- Every starter but Scott Madsen had a hit. Kanny's 7-8-9 hitters -- Maurice Gartrell, Michael Grace and Matt Sharp -- drove in all eight runs.
- Kanekoa Texeira gave up two runs in two innings, and has given up nine runs in his last seven innings.
- Birmingham OFF