Konerko powers Sox past Royals; Now, the Twins await

Posted September 12, 2010 11:00 pm

Scot Gregor

The White Sox are not even close to being where they want to be as they prepare for the opener of a three-game series with the first-place Twins on Tuesday night at U.S. Cellular Field.

But they could actually be in even more dire straits.

With Minnesota winning yet another game Sunday, the Sox fell behind the Royals 6-0 in the first inning and were in serious danger of falling 7 games off the pace with just 19 to play.

"When you are down 6-0 in the first inning, you can easily pack it in and come Tuesday and try to beat Minnesota," White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen said. "They came back and did it great."

Powered by a pair of 2-run homers from Paul Konerko and Andruw Jones' grand slam, the Sox managed to storm back for a 12-6 win at the Cell while keeping pace with the AL Central leaders.

The Twins still managed to reduce their magic number to 14 with Sunday's win at Cleveland.

The White Sox are telling themselves they'll still have a shot if they win two of three from Minnesota this week, but the reality is they need a sweep.

"That's probably the case, but regardless if it is, you can't sweep if you don't win the first one," Konerko said. "So that's kind of where my mind is. If we can take two out of three at least and put a little more heat back on them, there are still some games left after that.

"But a sweep would be nice. That would get us to 3 back and then with (16) to go. That seems more doable than 5 back with (16) to go. But we've just got to realize we can't sweep three games on Tuesday."

The pressure appears to be squarely on the White Sox, but Konerko isn't looking at it that way.

"This team, we went through a lot," Konerko said. "At the beginning of June we were left for dead. There's no pressure on us. We shouldn't play with any pressure. Just go out and play as hard as you can, have some fun and if it doesn't happen, it doesn't happen. But it's definitely not going to happen if we are tense and we play like if we lose we're disappointing the whole world."

John Danks (13-10, 3.54 ERA) starts for the Sox against Francisco Liriano (13-7, 3.24) in the series opener, followed by Gavin Floyd (10-12, 3.91) vs. Brian Duensing (8-2, 2.02) and Mark Buehrle (12-10, 3.99) vs. Carl Pavano (16-11, 3.47).

"That's the most important game, obviously, getting that first game," said reliever Sergio Santos, who pitched 11/3 scoreless innings Sunday to earn the win. "Everybody kind of knows what's at stake and what we need to do. Obviously it's not just win a series, we need to sweep them and gain some ground."

Konerko climbs: Paul Konerko had another huge offensive game Sunday, going 3-for-4 with a pair of 2-run homers and 5 RBI.

The White Sox' MVP candidate moved past Luke Appling and now ranks second in franchise history with 1,118 RBI.

Konerko also reached the 30 HR/100 RBI plateau for the fourth time, and his 362 career home runs moved him past Joe DiMaggio into 70th place on the all-time list.

"I'm proud of not so much the numbers - the numbers come and go," Konerko said. "I've had good years where I've put up numbers and not been proud of the numbers, so to speak. I'm just proud of coming in every day and doing it the right way. Whether I hit two home runs in my first two at-bats or whatever, the third and fourth I'm coming up with the same attitude. It's tough not to look at results, but it's what I try to do and I've been pretty good with that all year."

Scot Gregor's game tracker

Name game: Paul Konerko was 3-for-4 with a pair of 2-run homers and 5 RBI. The Sox' captain passed Luke Appling and now ranks second in franchise history with 1,118 RBI. Konerko also passed Joe DiMaggio and ranks 70th all time with 362 home runs.

In a pinch: Andruw Jones' pinch-hit grand slam was the first for the White Sox since Dewayne Wise on Sept. 14, 2008.

Cold hand Lucas: Rookie starter Lucas Harrell pitched 31/3 innings and allowed 6 runs, all in the first inning, on 9 hits and 3 walks.

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