Sox complete crosstown beatdown
With hunched shoulders, and arms and legs kicking robotically, Ozzie Guillen went into his best Lou Piniella impression after wishing his counterpart good luck before Sunday night's regular season-series finale at U.S. Cellular Field.
"Look at all these people here, (geez)!" the White Sox manager yelled in a cranky Piniella voice, cracking up the horde of media gathered in the visitors' dugout to talk with the Cubs' manager.
Piniella chuckled, too.
And what did he think of Guillen's impression?
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"You hang around with Ozzie long enough, you don't think," he said, smiling.
By the second inning, Piniella's smile was gone.
He earned his first ejection of the season after first base umpire Chad Fairchild shot down the Cubs' appeal that Joe Crede failed to check his swing on Sean Marshall's 0-2 pitch.
The Cubs were never in a smiling mood all weekend, in truth, losing 5-1 Sunday night as Mark Buehrle pitched well again to lead the Sox to their sixth straight win in a front of their third-straight sellout.
The Sox got homers from Carlos Quentin, Brian Anderson and Jim Thome. No surprise, considering they out-homered the Cubs 6-0 in the last two games.
Key to the Sox's sweep was keeping Aramis Ramirez hitless in the three games. He was 0-for-13 after homering four times in the Cubs' three-game sweep at Wrigley Field the previous weekend.
"I just made a comment (to the pitchers)," Guillen said. "I don't know if they followed it, but I just said we have to pitch Ramirez in. But when he's hot, it doesn't matter where you pitch to him. He's a good hitter."
Buehrle improved to 4-0 in his last five starts. After pitching 7 innings of 6-hit ball against the Cubs, he's yielded only 5 earned runs in his last 39 innings. His ERA is down to 3.79.
"Buehrle works fast and has a great cutter," said Cubs coach Alan Trammell, who took over the reins after Piniella's ejection. "He has a sixth sense and a great feel for pitching. He's been a winner and does a great job."
Marshall allowed a solo homer to Quentin in the fourth and a 2-run shot to Anderson in the fifth. The lefty was lifted after pitching 7 innings. He was making his second start in place of Carlos Zambrano, who's scheduled to come off the disabled list in time to make Friday night's start at St. Louis. Piniella said before Sunday night's game, however, that Marshall won't necessarily be bumped from the rotation.
"My initial thought was, put a nice young arm like (Sean) Gallagher in the bullpen and let him help out with some power coming out (of the bullpen)," Piniella said. "I like power bullpens. I always have."
The White Sox swept three games from the Cubs for only the second time ÃÆ#146;Ãcent;â#130;not;Åiexcl;Ãâ#128;šÃ#130;circ;shy;- the first came at Wrigley Field in 1999, two years after interleague play began.
This season the two rivals met as first-place teams for the first time in interleague play and are still atop their respective divisions. The Cubs' lead in the NL Central was sliced to 2.5 games with the loss, and the Sox are 1.5 games ahead in the AL Central.
"I'm done with this series," Buehrle said. "I'm kind of glad it's over. It's so stressful playing these guys and everything that comes with it. I can't wait for tomorrow to come in here ... kind of relax and get back to normal."