Doggin' It!

(August 5)

Short take:  Battle back, lose in ninth

Somebody ought to draw a picture of "Situational Hitting" for our Sox.  Clearly these guys have no understanding of the concept and could use some help learning the importance of it.  This should prove helpful in the future.  It certainly made the difference in this loss, a stupid 6-4 defeat to Tampa Bay at Comiskey for Dog Day.  

One of the pooches ought to bite Magglio Ordonez or Paul Konerko.  These two alone left eight runners on base.  Lead-off man Ray Durham was a giant 0 for 5.  If not for the fact the opposition was Tampa Bay, the Sox would have been dead and buried.  Starter Jon Garland gave up a three-run dinger in the first inning, and a Jeff Liefer error led to an unearned run.  The Sox were down 4-0 to these pigs and deservedly so.

When Ordonez and Konerko weren't killing rallies with outs, they were getting lucky.  Jose Valentin led off the sixth inning with a walk and only a fielding error prevented the slumping Magglio from hitting into a double-play to kill the rally.  As it was Valentin failed to score when he pulled up lame rounding third base on Jose Canseco's sure rbi-single.  

With nobody delivering a clutch hit, the 2001 Sox resorted to their old reliable means to scoring runs--the homerun.  Aaron Rowand hit a solo shot in the seventh and Jeff Liefer hit a three-run dinger to tie the the game in the bottom of the eighth.  Miracles--the Sox might go over .500 after all!

With a chance to win a ballgame, reliever Bob Howry instead lost one.  He gave up a single to the lead-off man but caught a break when Mark Johnson threw him out trying to steal second base.  No problem for Bullet Bob--he blew the game anyway.  A double, a walk, and a wild-pitch left runners at the corners with one out.  

Jerry Manuel goes to the bullpen for closer Keith Foulke.  Foulke shuts the door after two runs score--both charged to Howry.  It's poetic justice.  Howry has been brutal to teammates allowing inherited runners to score.  Turnabout is fair game.  

The Sox go down without a whimper in the bottom of the ninth and 21,000 Sox fans and 500 dogs go home mad.  Would Sox Security let the dogs relieve themselves in the players' parking lot?

Didn't think so.