Miscues help drop Sox 5 1/2 behind Twins
DETROIT - It's all starting to fall apart for the White Sox.
Yes, they opened this road trip with 7 straight wins at Cleveland, Boston and here at Comerica Park.
All that did was allow the Sox to keep pace with the surging first-place Minnesota Twins in the AL Central.
That has left the White Sox with no room for error as the calendar keeps flipping, but first baseman Mark Kotsay and right fielder Carlos Quentin each made a fielding miscue that led to 4 unearned runs in Tuesday's 9-1 loss to the Tigers.
In Wednesday night's 5-1 defeat, Sox third baseman Mark Teahen's made 2 errors and the Tigers cashed in with 3 unearned runs.
"You play good defense, your pitching staff is going to last longer," manager Ozzie Guillen said after the White Sox fell 51/2 games behind the Twins.
"I think the best thing this ballclub's been doing all year long is play defense. I think it shows all those baseball geniuses that say people don't need defense to win games.
"Any sport, if you don't play defense you're not going to win. I don't care how good you are offensively, sooner or later it will catch up to you."
It caught up to the Sox in the fourth inning.
After Omar Vizquel put the White Sox in front with a solo home run off Jeremy Bonderman in the top of the fourth, Detroit's Ryan Raburn led off the bottom of the inning with a single against John Danks.
Brennan Boesch popped out, and Casper Wells rifled a grounder down the third-base line.
Teahen gloved the ball, but he made a wide throw to Vizquel at second base and the Tigers went on to score 4 runs. Teahen also made a throwing error in the second inning, which Danks pitched over.
"Obviously, I made the first one and didn't get it out of my head, and then making another one that really hurt us," Teahen said. "It's frustrating, especially the way I didn't play the best defense before I got hurt.
"I mean you can have a 2-error game, but obviously I don't want to have one right now and in that situation where it really hurts us. So what can you do?"
Not much, besides lose another costly game in the standings.
There also was a warning issued in the game by home-plate umpire Brian Gorman.
In the first two games of the series, the White Sox were hit by 4 pitches and the Tigers none. Manny Ramirez was hit twice Tuesday.
When Bonderman threw a changeup in the fifth inning that nearly hit Andruw Jones in the head, Danks went up and in on Raburn when he led off the bottom of the fifth.
That prompted the warning, but there were no further incidents.
"I'm not saying (Bonderman) tried to hit us," Guillen said. "You can see when people want to hit you. In the meanwhile, it's something where you get upset. Somebody can get hurt.
"(Danks) was pitching inside. If we're going to hit (Raburn), we're going to hit him in the back. We're not going to hit them in the head. I guarantee you that, because we respect baseball players. The day we hit somebody we will hit them in the back, the legs."
<p class="factboxheadblack">Scot Gregor's game tracker</p>
<p class="News">Tigers 5, White Sox 1</p>
<p class="News"><b>Major miscues:</b> Mark Teahen's second error opened the door to 4 unearned runs in the fourth inning. The Sox have committed 17 errors in their last 14 games.</p>
<p class="News"><b>Bad matchup:</b> Andruw Jones struck out all three times he faced Detroit starter Jeremy Bonderman. Lifetime, Jones is 0-for-6 with 5 strikeouts against Bonderman.</p>
<p class="News"><b>It's over:</b> A.J. Pierzynski was 0-for-3, snapping his 14-game hitting streak.</p>
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