Dramatic Sox comeback foiled by close play at the plate

The White Sox at least showed some fight on Tuesday night.

Trailing 6-3 to the Tigers in the bottom of the ninth inning, the Sox took advantage of some erratic pitching from closer Fernando Rodney, loading the bases with no outs on 3 straight walks to Brian Anderson, Scott Podsednik and Alexei Ramirez.

After Brandon Lyon relieved Rodney and promptly struck out Jermaine Dye, it looked like the White Sox were going to stall in the clutch again.

But after Jim Thome followed with a walk to force in a run, Paul Konerko doubled in 2 more to tie the game and force extra innings.

The Sox could have won the game in regulation, but Dewayne Wise, who pinch-ran for Thome in the ninth, was thrown out at home on a close call by home-plate umpire Jim Joyce.

The play wound up costing the White Sox. Leading off the 10th inning, Miguel Cabrera homered off Scott Linebrink and Detroit held on for a 7-6 win.

The first-place Tigers now lead the Sox by 51/2 games.

"If we play like this a good percent of the time, a lot of good things will happen," said Sox manager Ozzie Guillen. "We battled back, and a couple of days ago we would have lost. I love the way they battled."

The Sox have been sharp in late-inning relief all season, but Linebrink and Octavio Dotel failed to come through Tuesday.

Before Cabrera homered against Linebrink, Placido Polanco drilled a 3-run double off Dotel in the seventh inning to snap a 3-3 tie.

In the third inning, A.J. Pierzynski and Tigers starter Dontrelle Willis exchanged words on the field after the Sox' catcher was nearly hit by a pitch before grounding out.

Both benches emptied, but that was about it.

"Misunderstanding," Guillen said. "To me, that's part of the battle."

Before the game, the Sox called up left-handed pitcher Aaron Poreda from Class AA Birmingham. Poreda was their first-round draft pick in 2007.

During the game, the White Sox took LSU outfielder Jared Mitchell with their first-round pick (No. 23 overall) in baseball's amateur draft.

Last week, last year's No. 1 pick, Gordon Beckham, was brought up for AAA Charlotte.

Add it all up, and it sure looks like the floundering White Sox (27-32) are in a rebuilding mode.

Guillen said that's not necessarily true.

"We're not rebuilding, we've got a pretty good ballclub," Guillen said. "You'll see when we're rebuilding when you see J.D. (Jermaine Dye) or somebody, big-named guys are going out of here. We're just trying to get better. That's why we're trying to get better, that's the reason, because we see we can compete, we see we can still do it."

"We're moving pieces around, but we were with these guys in spring training," Dye said. "We've been together for a long time now. Now it's the season, so it's a little bit different. Now you're expected to win, so there's not a lot of time to try and wait a couple weeks to jell as a club. You have to do it right then and there."

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