I expected us to lose this game. A 1-4 pitcher who has been shaky against a 7-0 pitcher who has been totally dominant? I expected the score to be like 17-1. We lost alright, but we didn’t fall out totally. Never seemed to get it going against Garland, which is the story of the day. Garland beat us to his major league leading eighth win of the season. He deserved the win, he pitched well, going 7 runs, giving up just 2 runs on 5 hits.
It did feel like we were behind the 8 ball however early however. It was because of some extra help from the umpire at third who CLEARLY blew a call calling Aaron Rowand safe at third when every replay showed he was out – and it was really obvious, too. That directly led to their first run, and while that one run didn’t decide the game, it came in the first, so one never knows what kind of mental tone that set for everything else that followed. It did lead to Steve Smith being ejected – he definitely is our most ejected coach. :)
Offensively, we didn’t mount much of an attack. We only had 6 hits, and three of them came from Mark Teixeira – and two of those 3 were doubles. The remaining three hits were from Blalock, Nix, & Hidalgo. Only two RBI’s were Tex and Hidalgo (who now has his average way up to .212).
I’m glad the old Ranger farmhand Scott Podsednik has gotten a good career together. He’s not a Carlos Beltran, or even a Cliff Floyd – but he’s a good solid respectable player, and from what I remember, a pretty nice guy, too. Good for him – the sport needs more good solid players like that. I like seeing him now that he’s in Chicago, I couldn’t see him when he was in Milwaukee.
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This game definitely had some rollercoaster moments. We started off early with Dellucci getting on base. Then he got thrown out stealing. Then Mench hit a home run. Then in the bottom of the first, Chan Ho Park gave up a grand slam which was fueled by a couple of walks. I got immediately disgusted. Even with our habit of coming back, a grand slam in the first inning is pretty much a statement made by a team, and even though we ended up winning the game, I still felt down because of the grand slam.
Speaking of Dellucci, he did have an odd trifecta of making outs this game. IN the first, he walked and was caught stealing. Later he walked again, but was picked off of first. And finally, in an odd way of finishing that, Dellucci was attempting to steal second again when Kevin Mench struck out, and David was called out on (rather obvious) batter’s interference on Mench’s part. All we needed was for him to get hit by a batted ball and be called out. :)
Kevin Mench did make up for his interference outs by hitting a game winning home run in the top of the 9th, which led to a 1-2-3 league leading 13th save by CoCo Cordero. But Kevin wasn’t absent from the goofiness tonight, even taking the interference call into play. There was one point where he was just taking his practice swing inbetween pitches, and on one of them, he went and wailed on AJ Pierzynski’s catcher’s mask, and knocked it clean off his face. Was an amusing clip, as you don’t normally see things like that. Reminded me of that bit from a couple of seasons ago when Arod was doing his “tap the bat on the plate” to start his at bat, and the bat shattered on the plate. Just the kind of thing you don’t normally see.
Tomorrow’s game looks like a lopsided win for the White Sox on paper. Pedro Astacio who has been uneven at best goes against Jon Garland, who has been nothing short of brilliant this season. The potential for an ugly night on Tuesday really exists. :)
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Before this game, Gary Matthews Jr was placed on the DL with a hamstring problem (prompting the calling up of Andres Torres, a spring training surprise). While one never feels good about players going on the DL, I have to say the injury problem that cropped up during Sunday’s game was a bit worse than Matthews trip. Perhaps not “worse”, but more troubling, as it was Mike Young. He left the game with lower back stiffness. He’s day to day, but it can’t be good. Hopefully it’s not something that will carry on long. I’m sure Mark DeRosa can be a capable SS, but I doubt he’s a long term answer if Mike Young has to go on the DL or something.
As for this game, Chris Young showed a bit of why we wanted him signed and not let to go play basketball at the end of last season. CY went only five innings, but allowed just two runs, and probably pitched well enough to carry a win, but Ron Mahay let that go by the waysides with 3ER in his 1.2 IP. CY did have a really high pitch count, he tossed 96 through five innings. Not good there, but if you overlook his pitch count, he was pretty decent from what little of the game I did get to watch. The game was definitely a letdown as we could have swept the Twins, who are not playing terribly well right now. Wasn’t helped by Brad Radke only allowing 2 runs over his seven innings. Joe Nathan bounced back from his fiasco on Friday night to nail down a save.
Hidalgo went 1 for 3 – nothing special, but it raised his batting average a few more points. In fact, none of our hitters had more than one hit apiece, although Kevin Mench did have a home run, and both Mike Young and Dellucci had doubles, so we weren’t totally dominated, it just felt that way. :)
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This night (and the last few he’s been out there) have belonged to Kenny Rogers. The only bad thing about all his recent success is that I see Scott Boras seeing more dollar signs from this performance. That scares me. But in the meantime, we have to be enjoying his 30 straight innings of shutout ball. On this night, Kenny tossed a 6 hit complete game shutout with no walks and 2K’s, and 104P. Mostly due to Kenny, this was an extremely crisp game, coming in at only two hours and seven minutes. What else can you say about that? Rogers was magnificent.
On the other side of the coin, Hidalgo had a good night for two nights in a row, going 2-4 with one run scored. His average after this game is now “up to” .200. He’ll need another dozen or so of these nights to make a major change in his batting average. I really want him to do well. But he’s seemed sluggish all season.
But this night was about Kenny. Couldn’t be a whole lot better. Makes me wonder if he has another no hitter or a perfect game in him, as he’s danced with both a few times in the last few years. I wonder how many more scoreless innings Kenny has to toss before we start seeing footage of Orel Hershisher’s streak. :)
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If the bullpen lost the game for us in the last game, in this one it was the saviour. Ryan Drese was looking like the 2003 and earlier edition of himself again (another disturbing trend I’ll get into when I have more time). Drese gave up 6ER on 9H in his 3.2IP. But the bullpen allowed us to win the game. The bullpen pitched 7 innings of shutout ball, giving up just 3 hits and 2 BB with 8 K’s. An impressive performance by our gang. Too bad Drese appears to be regressing, and can’t match the performance that got him off the hook.
Richard Hidalgo had the kind of game we brought him in to have in this one. He was 3 for 5 with 2 runs scored, and 2 RBI. He’s still below the Mendoza line, which is sad, as it’s where Jordan was last year when he was considered a failure. If this carries on much longer, I wonder how long we’ll continue with Hidalgo. It’s a shame, as it doesn’t seem like he’s really awful, but when you look at his numbers, you have to shrug your shoulders. If we talke Hidalgo out of the lineup, that means we’d probably go with an outfield of Mench, Nix, & Matthews.
We did get to Twins closer Joe Nathan for 3 runs in the 11th inning, something that was definitely out of the ordinary, as Nathan hadn’t allowed an earned run up until that point all season. That was nice to see. We’re back to two games over .500 – about where we seem to have gotten – not too far up, not too far down. Feels like a .500 year at the moment, doesn’t it?
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So far this season, we’ve done pretty well in daytime games. This was a getaway day afternoon game. I forget what our record is, something like 7-3 or something – I’m really not sure of the numbers. But we didn’t help that record today, losing 6-5 to the Tigers, to drop the series to them in the rubber game.
Pedro Astacio, who by all accounts was on thin ice with his last few pitching performances, saved his spot in the starting rotation – for now. He went six innings, giving up two runs on 6 hits. Additionally, he had 4K’s, and no walks – the no walks probably was the biggest point since the runs came on a home run – could have been worse with walks.
Offensively, we were pretty efficient, getting 5 runs on 7 hits. Alomar & Mench both had multi hit games. Dellucci had a pinch hit home run – which is always exciting to see.
Overall, it was a pretty decent game, until the bullpen came in. Our relievers (Loe, Mahay, Brocail) gave up 4 runs (3ER) in their 3IP. None of them was unscathed, and basically lost the game for us. Overall, our bullpen hasn’t been great this year, but it’s kind of felt (to me) that it’s come around a little lately, so this was a step backwards in my eyes.
Thursday is an offday (hate ’em), but with my family coming in town for my daughter’s christening, I likely won’t get to watch much baseball this weekend anyway.
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I’m scared. It’s May, and Chan Ho Park hasn’t pitched himself out of a job yet. His line wasn’t spectacular last night, and he didn’t get the win, but he’s looking at least servicable this season, which frightens me. If we manage to get to the playoffs, and he’s still in tow? Yikes – that makes my hair stand on end. Doug Brocail is looking like the Doug Brocail pre-2004 so far this year. His stats aren’t terrible (2-0, 4.91, 10K, 10BB), but they won’t win any Cy Young awards. He also doesn’t have that feeling he had last year. I’m not advocating dumping him, but I worry when he comes out of the bullpen now. Park had a really cool play during the game, a ball pinballed straight up in the air after kicking off his ankle, or leg or something like that. Park barehanded it coming down and tossed out the runner by half a step – was a very nice play. I actually wanted him to stay in the game when he was pulled, and THAT is the scariest thought of all. :)
Offensively, I thought we had the game wrapped up early. It certainly felt like it when we went up 3-0 after 1, and 4-0 after three. Park was pitching well (!) and we seemed to be hitting the ball well. Park got in a minor jam, and Brocail let several inherited runners score to tie the game, but Matthews came through in the 7th with his first home run of the season; a game winning home run.
Both us and the Angels seem to be putting some distance between ourselves and the A’s/Mariners. The division was all knotted up within a half game of each other awhile ago, and after last night’s play, we’re 1.5 behind Anaheim. Oakland is 5GB, and Seattle is 6GB.
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Dammit! That’s about all I can think of to say about this game right now, other than Chris Young probably should have gone out for the ninth.
At least our entire division lost tonight, so the standings remain unchanged.

Kenny Rogers shut down the Indians during his 7 innings on the mound. He gave up no runs (extending his scoreless streak to 21), six hits along with four strikeouts, and four walks. Speaking of streaks, Mark Teixeira now has a 12 game hitting streak, too. Soriano didn’t have any more home runs, but Mike Young did in the first inning to put us up 2-0 after the second batter of the game. This game felt more in control than last night’s game.
There really isn’t much to write about here. Rogers gave up nothing, we got a bunch of timely hits, but no one player dominated offensively.
Pudge and the surprisingly good Tigers come into town Monday night. Let’s see how we fare. I don’t expect it will be easy at all.
One other remark. With Rogers pitching this well, Scott Boras has to be salivating at the chance for another contract, eh?
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I was at this game, and before the game started, I was talking to a few of the other season ticket holders in my area, and we pretty much all agreed that Drese had become a question mark. No one really knew what to expect from him tonight, as he had gotten not destroyed like Astacio did last night, but pretty much hit around well. Much to our surprise, Drese pitched like Drese from last year. His line was extremely impressive.. 9IP, 6H, 1ER, 1BB, 1K, 100PT. It also was his first complete game win of his career, despite having a few complete games under his belt already.
Offensively, we were lead by Alfonso Soriano, who for the second night in a row had two home runs, with 3 RBI’s, and three runs scored. The other two RBI’s came from Mike Young and Rod Barajas (the last run scored on a throwing error). We actually only had 9 hits, but they were placed together well. Young and Teixeira had two each, as well as Soriano’s 3. Nix & Barajas chipped in with one each.
Was a nice game to be at – we won. Always good, but the game felt “in control” since the bottom of the second. Nice to not have to sit in the stands going “Oh God, we need 4 runs in the last 2 innings to just tie it”.
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