White Sox 4, A's 3: West Coast Fling

Baseball teams get 27 outs. Today, Juan Pierre was responsible for six. In four at-bats.

But lets focus on the good, shall we? When we last saw the Sox at US Cellular Field, they were coming off a two game "sweep" at the hands of the hapless Twins. If anything, a West Coast road trip could have provided the death blow to the 2011 Sox.

Instead, the Good Guys won 6 of 9. They are still seven games under .500, but that's a heck of a lot better than being 11 games under water (which was the case on May 7th).  

No one enjoyed their stay in Pacific Daylight Time more than Adam Dunn. It's safe to say he's starting to turn into the player fans thought he would be when he signed with the Sox last December. Here's his line for the last 7 days: .400/.464/.760 in 28 plate appearances. 

Paul Konerko, AJ Pierzynski, Omar Vizquel, and Alexei Ramirez also enjoyed the left coast. Jake Peavy, Mark Buerhle, Edwin Jackson, and Phil Humber turned in good pitching performances. Sergio Santos tightened his grip on the Closer Role, while Matt Thornton is starting to prove that as a closer, he's a great 8th inning guy.

So, how about that game? The White Sox seem to have Trevor Cahill's number. They roughed him up at the Cell, and they did the same today. Sox batters touched him for 10 hits and four runs, although two of them were unearned. Alexei Ramirez hit a solo homer to lead off the 4th, and Alex Rios hit a double in the sixth.

Fortunately for Cahill, Juan Pierre hit into two double plays to end scoring threats in the third and the fifth. Oh, and he got picked off in the 1st. 

Despite the fact that the White Sox tried to beat themselves, the A's did them one better. Alex Rios led of the 7th with a double. Omar Vizquel was supposed to bunt him to third. But Cahill threw the ball down the right field line. Rios scored, and Omar wound up on second. He would come home on an Alexei Ramirez single. Those two unearned runs made the difference in the game.

Sergio Santos made things interesting in the 9th, with walks to Cliff Pennington and Hideki Matsui. But he worked around them to earn his 5th save of the year.

Scoreboard Watching: The Indians, Tigers, and Royals were rained out. The Twins lost to Toronto 11-3, thanks to three homers from Jose Bautista.

Home Cookin': The Sox kick off a seven game homestand Monday night with a two game set against Texas. The first place Indians follow, and then they wrap it up with a three game series against the Dodgers.

Record: 17-24, nine games out of first place.

Written for Beerleaguer by Rob Hart, news reporter, anchor, and talk show host at WGN Radio.

Comments

[Buford]

If you believe in Hollywood stories, how about this one:

Recall the move “The Rookie” where the supposedly washed up player from Texas makes it to the ML and his first ML game is against the Rangers in Texas.

On Monday May 23rd, the Sox play the Rangers in Texas and pitching for us will be Texan John Danks…who has a brother Jordan Danks who plays outfield in Triple A for an organization that desperately needs a ML LF.

Kevin Costner plays Jordan Danks in the movie…produced by Jerry Reinsdorf and directed by Kenny Williams.

At the very least, this fanciful exercise took my mind off of Pierre for a while.

[mechanical turk]

As delighted as I'd be if Jordan Danks turned out to be a useful baseball player, I think we'd wind up with a guy essentially the same as Juan Pierre, but trade the stolen bases and picked off's for strikeouts. Sure would be a nice surprise if he figured it all out, though.

[Buford]

My Jordan Danks' guarded optimism is obviously triggered by his improved numbers even though it's only 1 1/2 months into the season. But something happened to Danks at the end of April which led to these current numbers:

250/341/563/904 with 17 XBH (including 8 HR's) of his 28 hits and only 4 SO in his last 38 AB's

He has changed his swing this year (the particulars of which I don't know) which leads to the obvious question: Is this new swing the reason for the improvement and is it sustainable? But also, why the improved plate discipline...and at the same time as the big power numbers? Intriguing

What we have now in LF is a lousy hitter and lousy defender whose one former attribute (speed) is diminishing due to age and no longer helps the team. Therefore, he now brings absolutely nothing to the table...and nothing can't be hard to replace. Someone with a good glove and a mediocre bat and the ability not to get picked off base is an improvement.

Jordan Danks could be the guy...just an intriguing thought.