36

If the White Sox were able to score 10 runs on 21 hits in an 11-inning win over the Indians without Manny Ramirez in the lineup, just imagine how much more potent the offense will be once Manny arrives. Uh, wait, the offense hasn’t been the problem lately, has it? Manny, Schmanny. The problem, which surfaced again last night, is relief pitching. So instead of putting in a waiver claim on Brian Fuentes, the Good Guys let the Twins – yes the very team the Sox are chasing for the Central Division crown – acquire the lefty reliever who led the league in saves last year with 48 and racked up 23 this year with the Angels.

But since we don’t have Fuentes – and don’t even have our own guys Matt Thornton and J.J. Putz available – we had to use Bobby Jenks in a 4-out save situation and Bobby blew his fourth save of the year. Handed a 6-3 lead, Jenks allowed three runs on three hits and a walk. To be fair, he had a little help from Brent Lillibridge, who threw a ball away, but the runs were all earned. The three runs in the bottom of the ninth sent the game into extra innings and the Sox were forced to use Scott Linebrink in relief for two innings. Fortunately, Liner came through like the Liner of old – no runs, no hits, no walks – and was the beneficiary of a four-run 11th inning outburst by the Sox bats to pick up his second win of the season.

Every Sox starter hit safely. Alex Rios led the hit parade with five hits, finishing a triple shy of the cycle. Mark Kotsay had three hits and five Sox players had a pair: Omar Vizquel, Paul Konerko, A.J. Pierzynski, Alexei Ramirez, and Gordon Beckham. The Sox improved their record to 2-0 this year when knocking out 21 hits – the only team to have done it even once in 2010. They’re now 19-1 all time when reaching that hit total. Scoring 10 runs in a game has a pretty high correlation with winning as well. No kidding, you say. Well the Sox are 321-30-1 all time when plating 10 men. That winning percentage is not quite as good as that racked up by all teams – 93-5 – this season when scoring that much. (Update subscriber Billy Addison tells me he loves these stats, so I’m going to keep throwing them out there.)

The win drew the Sox to within 4.0 games of the Twins, but there’s sobering news. With 31 games left, if Minnesota goes 16-15, the Sox will have to go 21-10 to win the division outright and 20-11 to tie and play a tie-breaker game at Target Field. The Good Guys have their work cut out for them and Manny won’t help the bullpen. Go Sox!