Three more one run games, and we walked away with two of them. And in hostile territory no less. As the season wraps up, this is looking more and more like White Sox fan’s dream season.
The first game was the rough one and the first of three where we scored a pair of runs. Mike Mussina outdueled Orlando Hernandez and while the White Sox outhit the Yankees 9-4, we lost the game 3-2 mostly because of an Alex Rodriguez homer. Paul Konerko and Timo Perez both had two hits and a solid start by El Duque went to waste.
Yesterday went a little more smoothly albeit with just as much drama. The White Sox got on the board first with a solo homer by Tadahito Iguchi and added a run in the ninth on a solo homer by Paul Konerko. In the meantime, Jose Contreras was awesome. Seven innings, six strikeouts, three hits, no runs. Alex Rodriguez stuck in the bottom of the ninth, but his homer came with nobody on base so the Sox escaped with their 25th one run game of the season.
The Sox wouldn’t have to wait too long for that 26th one run game of the season because they once again pulled out a close one. Aaron Small and Freddy Garcia pitched to a one run draw before the pen took over, and it took an extra inning RBI by Scott Podsednik for the White Sox to claim this one in the win column.
The White Sox are now 35 games above .500 and they’re on pace to win a franchise record 106 wins. This weekend will showcase the current best team in baseball against last year’s champions at historic Fenway Park. I’ll be home this weekend so I’ll get to catch the Saturday game on WGN.
August 13th, 2005 at 2:25 pm
I think that putting the White Sox on “pace for 106 wins” is a little misguided. For one, the Sox are only a handful of games over .500 over the last month and a half. Second, the loss of Frank Thomas limits the offense by about a quarter of a run per game. Finally, when you consider the expected regression to the mean in their record in one-run ballgames, you have to temper that estimate a bit.
Monte Carlo simulations of the remainder of the season peg them for 98-99 wins. I guess if you have any die-hard friends, the percentage play would be to set an over/under of 101.5 and have them pick the over. Probably an easy $25.