Double-play Fun!

(September 5)  

Short take:  Where have they been?

Once upon a time, the White Sox turned a lot of double-plays.  For one night, the team turned four of them making a huge difference in a 5-3 victory over Detroit.

It's a bit late to get excited about a win streak, but hey, it beats a losing streak.  And look--Cleveland lost!  Damn!  What if, Sox Fans...

Dan Wright pitched marginally better than Sox Fans have come to expect from the mid-season call up.  As Hawk Harrelson might say, "He gave up five hits, two of them stayed in the park."  Fortunately for our Sox, all three of those dingers were solo shots.  Wright left in the sixth inning with the lead and earned the win thanks to the bullpen.

Ray Durham continues to struggle at the top of the line up.  The Sox leadoff man went 0 for 5 with a strikeout.  He also left two runners in scoring position with two out.  Ray-Ray is having a nightmarish season.  

With the top of the line up stalled, it was the bottom that came through.  Mark Johnson got the Sox on the board with an rbi double in the third.  Chris Singleton and Royce Clayton each had rbi's in the fourth.  

Detroit looked to keep the game competitive with another homer in the sixth, but Magglio Ordonez took a 1-2 pitch into centerfield to score Singleton and open up a 5-3 lead in the seventh.

The bullpen was brilliant.  Bill Pulsipher, Josh Fogg, Bob Howry, and Keith Foulke combined for 3.1 innings of no-run, 3-hit baseball.  Yeah, Foulke was shaky in the ninth but his 37th save will look like all the rest of them in the season statistics.

What made the difference?  Four double-plays.  The Sox turned one each in first, fourth, seventh, and ninth innings, killing Tiger rallies.  

Sox go for the big four-game series sweep Thursday afternoon at Comiskey.  What could have been...