Sox leave N.Y. needing a boost
NEW YORK - After an extended pause, White Sox shortstop Orlando Cabrera came up with the words to succinctly sum up the state of his reeling team.
"We're missing something," Cabrera said after the Sox completely fell apart in a 9-2 loss to at Yankee Stadium on Thursday night. "I don't know what it is. Hopefully we can get it back in the next series. Get that confidence back and we can win the next ballgame. That's what I don't see."
While the White Sox lost two of the first three to New York in this four-game series, manager Ozzie Guillen was satisfied with the fight in his team.
That feeling changed following Thursday's loss.
"Horrible," Guillen said. "We don't pitch well, we don't hit at all, we don't have anything going forward right now. If we want to get to where we want to get, we better start playing better in general - offensively, defensively, pitching - or it's going to be tough for us to compete. They have to push as hard as they can as long as they can. We've only got a week-and-a-half left."
Playing in their final series here before Yankee Stadium meets the wrecking ball, the Sox were outscored 20-10.
"We've fought all the way to now, why do we have to lay down now?" Guillen said. "We have to get up and keep fighting. Nobody said it was going to be easy, especially here. It's not going to be easy, and they have to realize that. But in the meanwhile, I don't think we're playing like we're in the pennant race.
"We're lucky enough Minnesota lost a couple of games and we got a couple of breaks there. But if we keep playing like that, it's going to be tough for us to be in the playoffs."
The Twins beat the Rays at Tampa Bay 11-8 Thursday night to trim the White Sox' AL Central lead to 1 1/2 games.
The Sox took a 1-0 lead in the first inning, but they should have done more damage after loading the bases against starter Mike Mussina with one out.
In the bottom of the first, the Yankees took the lead for good when Bobby Abreu hit a 2-run homer off Javier Vazquez.
Pitching on only three days' rest, Vazquez was tagged for another home run (solo) by Abreu the third inning and never made it out of the fourth after allowing 3 walks and a single while recording only one out.
"I wasn't tired," Vazquez said. "I felt good. I was just all over the place today and I wasn't aggressive enough."
Guillen agreed with Vazquez being all over the place.
"It's one thing to be on short rest, it's one thing to be around the plate," Guillen said. "A lot of people like to pitch on time. We brought him back maybe a little early, but he wasn't throwing strikes. If you don't throw strikes, no matter if you pitch on one days' rest, two days' rest or 10 days' rest, if you don't throw strikes you're not going to have success."
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