Things started well in this series. On Monday, the White Sox put 14 runs on the board and they beat the Kansas City Royals for the tenth straight time this year. Kansas City got quite a few hits (16) but they only put six runs on the board, which wasn’t nearly enough. The White Sox, in the meantime, put up 22 hits in the rout.
Six different White Sox had three hits, and a grand total of eight had mulithit games. Jermaine Dye led the way with four RBIs while A.J. Pierzynski homered and scored three runs.
Then something odd happened yesterday. The Royals finally beat the White Sox. With the game tied 1-1, the Royals touched Mark Buehrle for six runs in the sixth and Jose Lima held the Sox to a single run to win only his fourth game of the season.
The Royals clinched the series this afternoon in what was probably the toughest game to swallow for Sox fans. They jumped out to a quick 5-0 lead in the sixth, only to see it evaporate right before their eyes. Mike Sweeney hit a two run shot in the bottom of the fifth, then struck again with a three run shot in the bottom of the eighth. The game went into extra frames and the Royals finally put the game away in the bottom of the thirteenth.
The White Sox offense was pretty bad. They managed only eight hits, but that was through thirteen. Jon Garland threw a very good game and an error resulted in two unearned runs against him.
This is old news, but Frank Thomas is back on the DL. The move was retroactive to last Thursday, so he has about week left before he can come back. This time it’s a swollen left foot. Hopefully while he’s off, he’ll find his bat. While his OPS is solid (.905), his batting average is only .219.
Brandon McCarthy threw his first decent game in a long time. He’s even struggled at AAA since he was called up and made his major league debut, but this afternoon, he threw eight shutout innings and struck out eight. The win improved his record to only 4-7, but he has 102 strikeouts in 86 1/3 innings. His ERA was above five, but this last start pushed it to 4.69.
