Sunday, May 31, 2009

118

Sweeeep! After winning the first two games of their last three series only to lose the finale, the White Sox finally got to use their brooms, beating the Royals and the best pitcher in baseball, Zack Greinke, 7-4. The Sox got to Greinke for four runs -- a hefty total considering he'd given up only seven runs prior to Sunday's game -- and they got to him early. Scott Podseknik led off the game with a triple and scored on Jim Thome's single, hit to where the shortstop would have been if he hadn't been playing the Thome-shift.
But KC fought back against John Danks, who broke the streak of Sox starters giving up fewer than four runs in a game. The Royals took a 4-1 lead after three innings, all of their runs coming against Danks. He wasn't on top of his game, lasting only 5.1 innings, while allowing those four runs on nine hits and two walks. The Sox comeback, highlighted by two RBI by Josh Fields (1 for 3, extending his hitting streak to seven games), knotted the score at 4-4 and took Danks off the hook for the loss.
Octavio Dotel (1.0 IP) and Matt Thornton (1.2 IP) shut down KC long enough for the Sox to rally in their last at bat, scoring three runs in top of the ninth. The big blow was a bases-loaded single to right by Chris Getz that scored two runs. Bobby Jenks came in to pitch a three-up, three-down ninth to save the game for Thornton (now 2-1). Jenks's save was his 12th of the season, in 13 chances.
The offense continued its double-digit attack, this time racking up 11 hits (to the Royals' 10). Scottie Pods's three hits -- a homer shy of the cycle -- led the way, as the rejuvenated hero of 2005 looks like the answer to the 2009 leadoff question. Pods is up to .297 and providing everything that the parade of players that Ozzie tried there before could not.
Now, it's back home for a season-longest 12-game homestand. While the team is still 4.0 games behind Detroit, the Sox get the chance to take that matter into their own hands as they host the Tigers for five games after opening with Oakland (4 games) and Cleveland (3 games). Go Sox!

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