Dunns helps power Sox past A’s
The White Sox certainly seem to be on the upswing.
Maybe that’s not a coincidence, because Adam Dunn is, too.
Sox fans who have been impatiently waiting for the left-handed slugger to come through with a big hit can stop pacing.
In Sunday’s nail-biting 5-4 victory over the Athletics at U.S. Cellular Field, Dunn finally delivered.
“Big hit for Dunner today, not only for him but it was huge in the game,” Paul Konerko said. “We didn’t have much going early; we were kind of flat today.
“That was one of those games you could see going the wrong direction, but Phil (Humber) held us in there and Adam woke us up with that home run.”
Slumbering through much of the season, Dunn launched a 1-2 pitch from Oakland starter Guillermo Moscoso deep into the right-field seats in the fourth inning to rally the Sox from a 1-0 deficit.
They added 2 runs (1 unearned) in the seventh and survived another shaky outing from reliever Sergio Santos to edge the Athletics and pull within 3½ games of the Detroit Tigers and the fading Cleveland Indians in the AL Central.
“That felt good to finally square one up,” Dunn said. “(Moscoso) was throwing really good and that was a situation where we were very fortunate to get those 3 runs.”
The White Sox are fortunate to still be in contention considering Dunn’s inauspicious start to the season.
Yes, he has 2 home runs and 6 RBI over his last four games, but Dunn still is batting .180 overall and a ridiculous .031 (1-for-47) against left-handed pitchers.
At least it appears the worst is over.
“I feel good now,” Dunn said. “I feel good after the two solid benching days that I had. I’ve felt good since I’ve been back.”
Now tied with a pretty good hitter named Joe DiMaggio for 72nd place on the all-time list in career home runs (361), Dunn has looked like a different hitter since sitting out Tuesday and Wednesday against the Seattle Mariners.
He’s still going to strike out at an accelerated rate — Dunn always has.
But as he showed with a deep flyout to right field in the second inning before easily clearing the fence in the fourth, Dunn is slowly starting to resemble the guy who hit at least 38 home runs a season from 2004-10.
“When Dunn makes good contact, that ball has a very good chance to leave the park,” manager Ozzie Guillen said.
And if Dunn makes consistently good contact, the White Sox do have the potential to leave the rest of the division in their wake.
Not only are the Sox (33-35) the closest they’ve been to the AL Central lead since April 16, they are two games under the .500 mark for the first time since April 18 (7-9).
Guillen said Konerko and Quentin are having all-star seasons, but the White Sox still need Dunn and Alex Rios (.212) to hold up their ends.
“It’s fun to watch him hit,” Humber said of Dunn. “When he’s going good … we’ve all been rooting for him and just kind of being patient and waiting for that to happen. Hopefully this is the start of a lot of good things to come.”