Sunday, September 23, 2012

Game 39 vs. Chicago

Here’s today’s great puzzlement: how hard is it to get telephones to work? At one point between innings Robin “Ow! Ow! Ow!” Ventura, home plate umpire Tim Timmons, Ned Yost and one of the cops on the field appeared to be having a great conversation about some serious topic. Fizzy Rocks was in the booth, so the radio was no help on the subject. But in his post-game press conference Yost revealed that the phone between the White Sox dugout and bullpen died.

Really, isn’t the telephone a technology we’ve had for some time now? So typical of the Royals organization that they can’t even make the phones work.

Fortunately the team fared a bit better than the technology. We were up against Chris Sale, the ace of Chicago’s first place staff and a solid contender for the Cy Young. But all the good pitching in the world doesn’t win a game if your team doesn’t score. And the Sox didn’t.

It wasn’t for lack of trying. Chicago stranded eight runners in scoring position, half of them at third base. But it must have been Bruce Chen’s lucky night. As Yost later observed, he kept pitching himself into trouble and then pitching himself back out of it.

We weren’t exactly stellar at the plate. Indeed, Sale struck out the side in the second. But we caught a few breaks here and there. Alcides Escobar pulled off a Baltimore Chop in the third, not something you see everyday. We only scored once in that inning, but we added another two in the seventh thanks in part to Eric Hosmer stretching a single to a double by simply failing to stop running.

It was nice to see us play aggressively against a team that should want victories way worse than we do. Funny how often we seem to slip into the role of September Spoiler for the AL Central.


The box score:

WHITE SOX (0) AT ROYALS (3)

WHITE SOX            AB  R  H BI  ROYALS               AB  R  H BI
Alejandro De Aza      5  0  4  0  Jason Bourgeois       4  1  1  0  
Kevin Youkilis        5  0  0  0  Alcides Escobar       3  1  3  0  
Adam Dunn             3  0  0  0  Alex Gordon           3  0  2  2  
Paul Konerko          3  0  1  0  Billy Butler          3  0  0  1  
Alex Rios             4  0  3  0  Salvador Perez        4  0  1  0  
Dayan Viciedo         3  0  0  0  Mike Moustakas        4  0  1  0  
 Dewayne Wise         1  0  1  0  Jeff Francoeur        4  0  0  0  
Alexei Ramirez        4  0  0  0  Eric Hosmer           4  1  1  0  
Tyler Flowers         3  0  0  0  Johnny Giavotella     3  0  0  0  
 Orlando Hudson       1  0  0  0                                    
Gordon Beckham        2  0  0  0                                    
 A.J. Pierzynski      1  0  0  0                                    
TOTALS               35  0  9  0  TOTALS               32  3  9  3

WHITE SOX                     000 000 000 -- 0  
ROYALS                        001 000 20x -- 3  

LOB--WHITE SOX 11, ROYALS 8. ERR--Alexei Ramirez. 2B--Alex
Rios, Paul Konerko, Alejandro De Aza, Alex Gordon, Eric
Hosmer, Mike Moustakas. 3B--Alejandro De Aza. SACF--Billy
Butler. SB--Alcides Escobar.

 WHITE SOX                       IP    H    R   ER   BB   SO   HR
Chris Sale                    6 2-3    8    3    3    2    8    0
Nate Jones                    0 1-3    0    0    0    0    0    0
Brian Omogrosso               0 2-3    1    0    0    0    0    0
Donnie Veal                   0 1-3    0    0    0    0    0    0
 ROYALS                     
Bruce Chen                    6 2-3    5    0    0    3    4    0
Kelvin Herrera                1 1-3    3    0    0    0    2    0
Greg Holland                      1    1    0    0    0    1    0

SO--Kevin Youkilis (2), A.J. Pierzynski, Alexei Ramirez,
Tyler Flowers (2), Dayan Viciedo, Jeff Francoeur, Billy
Butler, Alex Gordon, Eric Hosmer, Mike Moustakas (2), Johnny
Giavotella, Salvador Perez. BB--Adam Dunn, Paul Konerko,
Gordon Beckham, Alex Gordon, Alcides Escobar.

LOCATION: The K

CONDITION: Dry

WEATHER: Cool, Dry

Buck: W+ (disaster area pet rescue)
Guard: USN
Anthem: Please wear pants that fit

Umpires:
H: Timmons
1: Foster
2: Cooper
3: Kellogg

Time: 7:10
Temp: 79

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