Sox win 9th straight thanks to misplay in CF
The ball has been bouncing the White Sox’ way during an impressive winning streak, but this is getting a little ridiculous.
Looking to make it nine in a row in Friday night’s game against the Mariners in front of 19,168 at U.S. Cellular Field, it looked like the Sox’ luck had finally run out.
A pair of home runs by Gordon Beckham off Seattle ace Felix Hernandez and a solo shot by Adam Dunn put the White Sox firmly in front at 4-0 through 5 innings.
But Seattle chipped away against starter Jake Peavy and reliever Matt Thornton, who set a franchise record with his 425th appearance.
The Mariners didn’t even have a hit Justin Smoak led off the fifth inning with a bloop single that dropped in front of catcher A.J. Pierzynski.
The ball would have rolled fouled, but third baseman Orlando Hudson picked it up in fair territory while Smoak was crossing first base.
That looked like a bad bounce for the Sox, but Peavy still had a shutout through six innings before Seattle scored 2 in the seventh and 2 more in the eighth to tie it.
“They (Mariners) came in off scoring 21 (runs) against a pretty good team (Texas, on Wednesday),” manager Robin Ventura said. “They can swing the bats, and they grind out at-bats. That’s what they did tonight.”
Seattle did stage a nice comeback, but the White Sox caught a huge break in the eighth inning that opened the door to a 7-4 win.
The nine-game winning streak is the Sox’ longest since July 4-10, 2010.
Paul Konerko led off the eighth inning with a routine flyball to center field, but the Mariners’ Michael Saunders apparently lost it in the lights. The ball deflected off Saunders’ glove and hit him on the right side of the face.
“You see (Saunders) under it and it kind of bounces away,” Ventura said. “Baseball’s weird that way.”
If weird is good, the White Sox are not complaining.
Konerko reached second base on the error, and the Sox cashed in with 3 unearned runs to put the Mariners away.
It has been quite a stretch of baseball, and Beckham got Friday’s win off to a good start with the first multihomer game of his career.
“It’s nice to get that out of the way and not ever have to say I never hit 2 home runs in a game,” Beckham said. “That was nice, but I don’t look at it like that. Those got us going a little bit, but the guys in the eighth inning did all the work. You’ve got to credit that. That was pretty awesome to come back and win like that after they tied it up.”
Beckham was actually robbed by of another hit by Saunders, who made a standout diving catch in the seventh inning.
But the maligned No. 2 hitter stretched his hitting streak to eight games and is coming into his own.
“I actually felt terrible in b.p. today,” Beckham said. “It was one of those things where I got in the game and got a good feel and there you go, which should tell you a lot about batting practice.
“I’ve been seeing it OK. I think I still have a lot of room for improvement. Even in the eighth inning, I wanted that hit. I wanted to get some more runs in and make it a little bit clearer victory. I’m still learning. I guess that’s a good thing if I’m upset after a 2 home run game. We’ll just go from there.”
sgregor@dailyherald.com