Sox show some fight in ninth, but streak ends at 11

It was bound to end sooner or later.

The White Sox rattled off 11 wins in a row - their longest streak in 49 years - but the magic finally seemed to depart at U.S. Cellular Field on Sunday when the Cubs took an 8-3 lead into the ninth inning and brought closer Carlos Marmol out of the bullpen to finish it up.

Marmol was shaky, issuing one-out walks to Mark Kotsay and A.J. Pierzynski before getting Alexei Ramirez on a lazy flyball to Alfonso Soriano in left.

"I definitely thought we had a chance," Gordon Beckham said. "I didn't think when the inning started we did, but sometimes when you get somebody on and you get someone on and you get a hit when you've got two outs, it breaks the momentum of the other team."

Beckham followed Ramirez with a double down the left-field line that scored Kotsay, and Juan Pierre singled off Marmol to score Pierzynski and Beckham to make it 8-6.

Relatively listless for much of the afternoon, Sox fans in the crowd of 39,682 came to life as it looked like the streak had a chance to reach a dozen.

"Down by 5 runs, we come down to the last pitch," said White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen. "That shows you what kind of ballclub we hope we have for the rest of the season."

Pinch hitter Andruw Jones followed Pierre with a walk, and that brought Alex Rios to the plate as the winning run.

Rios got ahead in the count 2-0 and then took 2 called strikes that could have gone either way. He struck out swinging on Marmol's next pitch to end the game.

"We gave them a finish," Pierre said. "We got down early and we could have easily rolled over right there. We were 1 hit away from winning that game or tying it up. You can take some solace of giving a fight, but the way we've been going, we are disappointed with losses now, which is a good thing."

It was almost difficult to remember that Sunday's loss was the Sox' first since June 13, when Ted Lilly got the best of Gavin Floyd in a 1-0 duel at Wrigley Field.

"It was great," said Sox starter John Danks, who took the loss Sunday after allowing 6 runs on 7 hits in 5 innings. "It's always good to win 11 in a row. It (stinks) to be the guy to break the streak, I guess, but we got back in it. We've been winning games and fortunately the teams in front of us have been losing.

"We're within striking distance now. We're in a range where we felt we would be going into the season."

The streak is over, but the Sox have won 15 of their last 17 and their starting pitching has been strength for the better part of three weeks. Now they are back in the American League, and the Kansas City Royals are up first at Kauffman Stadium.

"I think it's important that we come out and play (Monday) night," Paul Konerko said. "Cubs series, you always see the letup into the next series because there's such a buildup to this series and these games have a lot of adrenaline and emotion.

"That's something we've got to keep an eye on for (Monday) night - to come out not flat and with good intensity to win a game because you don't want one to turn into two and that turns into three or four.

"You just want to stop it as quick as you can, and I think we will. I think everybody is realizing the way we won these games wasn't by luck. It was because we were doing a lot of little things and playing the game the right way."