The White Sox’ season hit rock bottom (one hopes) with last week’s brutal six-game home stand. Mark Buehrle, the supposed ace of the five-man starting rotation, bookended the set, losing the first and last games. He had only one bad inning in the opener against Texas, but that five-run third gave the Rangers all they needed in the 10-3 win. Every inning was an ordeal in the closer against the Minnesota Twins. He left in the sixth charged with seven runs, and brushed past pitching coach Don Cooper in the dugout to head straight for the clubhouse.
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
It was a team collapse. The Sox lost 12 of 15 games, going back to before the All-Star break, and everything seemed to abandon them, including last year’s luck. Of the starters, only Jon Garland pitched well, winning the first two games the Sox won after the break. Otherwise, when the team hit the starters got hit harder, and on the rare occasions when the starters pitched well the Sox didn’t hit. Typical was Jose Contreras’s loss in the middle of the three-game series with the Twins: he got beat 4-3 on a pop-fly homer by slap-hitting shortstop Jason Bartlett. The sweep at the hands of the Twins actually tied the two teams at 59-41, a distant eight and a half games behind the Detroit Tigers in the American League Central and a half-game behind the New York Yankees in the wild-card race. As the Twins congratulated each other on the field, some in the upper deck booed the Sox and shouted, “You suck!”
The Sox fell behind in the first inning in a manner that made one think there might be something to their bad luck. The O’s Miguel Tejada hit a two-out, broken-bat double down the left-field line to score a runner from first. Of course, it didn’t help that Pablo Ozuna in left field botched the relay throw to Juan Uribe. The Sox’ Brian Anderson doubled in the third, eliciting a few claps at the bar, and scored on an Ozuna single and a sacrifice fly by Tadahito Iguchi, but the Sox went on to leave the bases loaded. Sox starter Freddy Garcia, looking as ever as if he’d just rolled out of bed in his White Sox pajamas, gave the lead right back, allowing a homer to Brian Roberts on a decent but ill-fated curve, then yet another two-out RBI double by Tejada. This one was Garcia’s fault, coming on an 0-2 fastball on the outside corner that Tejada swatted down the right-field line.
The Sox of last season, who took advantage of every slight edge opponents gave them, would have turned that win into a reversal of fortune, but nothing’s coming easy this year. Garland pitched Saturday, but he’d come down with a sudden summer cold and he got knocked around. Even so, a seven-run third led to a 13-11 Sox win. Sunday, the unreliable Javier Vazquez twice gave up leads, but the Sox rallied to take a 7-6 advantage on Dye’s three-run homer. Then Jenks, the Sox’ one rock-solid element all season, blew the save and lost the game 8-7. It wasn’t the end of the world, but it put another dent in the psyche of the Sox and their fans.
