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| Yeah, I have no idea. |
So the circus came to town. We saw the elephants and the bearded lady and the lion tamer and the trapeze and the tightrope and the whole thing. I loved it. But I’ve gotta say that it’s a real relief to go out to the ballpark for a plain old ballgame.
And this was a good game for it. Last night was a 14-inning loss that looked no end of painful, so we were hoping to avoid a repeat. At least with Luke Hochevar on the mound, if we got beat it wasn’t likely to be by a one-run margin. He actually got off to a pretty good start. The White Sox went scoreless in the first, threatened but didn’t cash in in the second, and managed to score only one in the third.
Then we answered in the bottom of the inning. Jarrod Dyson singled, stole second and came around to score on a single by Alex Gordon, which at long last is what we actually have Dyson for. Then Alcides Escobar rendered his great base running moot by hitting one into the bullpen in left. Not exactly what we have Escobar for, but quite welcome nonetheless.
And we kept hitting Sox ace Jake Peavey the whole night. He got us in order only in the first and fifth, and we made it at least as far as scoring position in every other inning.
In the meantime, Chicago got to Hochevar in the top of the sixth. Bruiser Adam Dunn led off with a home run that cleared the green wall in front of the scoreboard. Then Paul Konerko scored on a triple by Dayan Viciedo, and suddenly we were tied.
But not for long. With two outs in the bottom of the inning, miracle of miracles: Escobar hit another homer into pretty much the same spot as the first one. That makes four for him for the year, three of which we got to see (and of course two we got to see tonight).
The Sox vaguely threatened in the top of the eighth. Actually Alexi Ramirez hit a single, which normally wouldn’t count as a threat. But then in comes A.J. “Boooooo” Pierzynski to pinch hit. Though such situations usually take full advantage of whatever curse we live under, tonight it must have been slumbering. Pierzynski obligingly grounded into a 5-3 put-out Moooooooose!
In the bottom of the inning we scored two more on some solid station-to-station that brought Jason Bourgeois in to pinch run for Billy Butler and Lorenzo Cain in to pinch hit for Dyson. The three run lead was enough to aim the division leaders’ band-wagoning fans toward the parking lot, and Jonathan Broxton didn’t even pull his usual trick of making things unnecessarily exciting.
What a great way to start the second half of the season.
The box score:
WHITE SOX (3) AT ROYALS (6)
WHITE SOX AB R H BI ROYALS AB R H BI
Alejandro De Aza 4 0 2 1 Alex Gordon 5 1 1 1
Kevin Youkilis 4 0 0 0 Alcides Escobar 4 2 2 3
Adam Dunn 3 1 1 1 Eric Hosmer 4 0 0 0
Paul Konerko 4 1 1 0 Billy Butler 4 0 2 0
Alex Rios 3 0 1 0 Mike Moustakas 4 1 2 0
Alexei Ramirez 4 0 1 0 Jeff Francoeur 3 0 2 1
Dayan Viciedo 4 0 1 1 Chris Getz 3 0 2 0
Tyler Flowers 3 0 0 0 Salvador Perez 3 0 0 0
A.J. Pierzynski 1 0 0 0 Jarrod Dyson 3 1 1 0
Gordon Beckham 3 1 1 0 Lorenzo Cain 0 0 0 1
*Jason Bourgeois 0 1 0 0
TOTALS 33 3 8 3 TOTALS 33 6 12 6
WHITE SOX 001 002 000 -- 3
ROYALS 003 000 12x -- 6
LOB--WHITE SOX 8, ROYALS 7. 2B--Alex Rios, Alejandro De Aza,
Chris Getz. 3B--Alejandro De Aza, Dayan Viciedo. HR--Adam
Dunn, Alcides Escobar (2). SACF--Lorenzo Cain.
SACB--Alejandro De Aza, Chris Getz. SB--Jarrod Dyson.
WHITE SOX IP H R ER BB SO HR
Jake Peavy 7 12 6 6 1 5 2
Hector Santiago 1 0 0 0 1 0 0
ROYALS
Luke Hochevar 5 5 3 3 3 4 1
Aaron Crow 1 2 0 0 0 1 0
Jose Mijares 0 2-3 0 0 0 1 1 0
Greg Holland 1 1-3 1 0 0 0 1 0
Jonathan Broxton 1 0 0 0 0 0 0
WP--Luke Hochevar, Aaron Crow. SO--Adam Dunn, Kevin Youkilis
(2), Alejandro De Aza, Tyler Flowers, Dayan Viciedo (2),
Jeff Francoeur, Billy Butler, Alex Gordon, Alcides Escobar,
Eric Hosmer. BB--Alex Rios, Adam Dunn, Kevin Youkilis,
Gordon Beckham, Jeff Francoeur, Salvador Perez.
Buck seat: H-
Guard: Firemen
Anthem: Okay
Umpires:
H - Tchida
1 - Baker
2 - Welke
3 - Guccione
Time: 6:11
Temp: 97
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