Jose, Baby!

(August 1)

Short take:  A glimpse of the future?

Danny Wright is the latest of live young arms to join the starting rotation for our Chicago White Sox.  Sox Fans have been getting a steady diet of them now for over two years and the rotation bears no resemblance today to the one on opening day.  Mark Buehrle, a near-rookie himself, is the only one that is left from the original four that included David Wells, Cal Eldred, and Jim Parque.  Wright was rough early but pitched well enough to win 7-5 over Kansas City.

Wright struggled with control in the first inning and it cost him.  It seemed he was always behind in the count, touched for three runs on four hits.  It was 3-0 Royals before the Sox even got their first cuts.

What better time for Babe Ruth to show up.

Having made some promises to a group of children, guests on Cancer Survivors Night, Jose Canseco came through like only the great Bambino ever did, powering two shots over the wall in his first two at-bats.  He single-handedly delivered the Sox five runs with two swings of the bat and staked the team to a 5-3 lead.  

Hey, the Bambino made just one promise and only delivered one homerun!  Who is the bigger hero?

That was enough breathing room for Wright.  He pitched out of a bases loaded jam in the fourth and left in the fifth having allowed four runs and seven hits, three strikeouts against three walks.  He also left with the lead.

Wright got the "W" because the bullpen quartet of Rocky Biddle, Alan Embree, Gary Glover, and Keith Foulke bent only enough to let K.C. come close but never over the top to tying the game.   A key pair of insurance runs scored on a Royce Clayton homer (fourth inning) and a Aaron Rowand rbi single (sixth inning) made the winning difference.

Ray Durham left with an aggravated hamstring; Magglio Ordonez left with a bruise after being hit by a pitch.  In a nightmarish year filled with season-ending injuries, Sox Fans are thankful neither was a torn labrum.

We Sox Fans have become the most-adept of fans anywhere tossing around such medical terms.