Maybe I cursed by saying I’d be happy with a split. Once again, the Sox bats failed them as a very strong outing by Jose Contreras went to waste. He gave up only four hits through nine innings while striking out nine. Unfortunately he gave up a two run homer to rookie Dallas McPhereson that ended up making the difference.
The White Sox only managed six hits of their own, with Scott Podsednik having the only multi-hit game. He went two for four with a run and an RBI. He was also caught stealing for the seventh time this year.
As I check out the Sox team stats at Hardball Times a few things stick out. First off, the Sox are still three games ahead of their Pythorgorean Win/Loss, meaning the Sox five game lead is largely due to luck/timely hitting. However, their batting average on balls in play is below average (.276 vs. 294 league average) so in some respects, they’ve gotten unlucky with the bats. And the pitching/defense side, they’re still tops. They lead the league in ERA, runs given up, slugging percentage allowed, and Defensive Efficiency. So the hope is, when the pitching falters a bit, the hitters will start finding the gaps and get the offense going.
The Sox travel to Arlington to play the Rangers tonight. Hopefully they’ll come out of this one with the series win and finish the road trip with a winning record.
February 12th, 2006 at 9:48 pm
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