Quentin's HR puts White Sox on verge of sweep
Carlos Quentin led the White Sox from out of more than one shadow Saturday.
Hitting in the seventh inning against Cubs reliever Carlos Marmol with what he described as a "significant" shadow between home plate and the pitcher's mound, Quentin lifted a high, outside, 0-2 pitch to the Bullpen Sports Bar in right field for what held up as the game-winning salvo in a 6-5 White Sox victory before 39,143 at U.S. Cellular Field.
The win put the Sox in position to sweep the weekend series and split the season series with a victory tonight at 7:05 p.m.
In the opinion of Cubs manager Lou Piniella, the overall display put on by the White Sox - which included 3 home runs, a diving catch by Joe Crede with the bases loaded in the third inning and 4 innings of shutout pitching from five Sox relievers ˆ- should be enough to lift the South Siders from the Cubs' shadow among baseball observers throughout the Second City and beyond.
"The White Sox should win that division by half-a-dozen games or more if you want to know the truth," Piniella said. "They've got just about everything that's needed. They've got power, they've got a good defensive team on the field and they've got a helluva bullpen and good starters.
"Everybody looks at the Cubs. Look at the White Sox. They're a pretty good ballclub."
Sox manager Ozzie Guillen used Piniella's comment to reiterate a pregame point he made to reporters about how his opinions are given less weight in the Chicago media than Piniella's.
"Coming from Lou, we should (win the division)," Guillen said. "Coming from Ozzie, you're crazy."
The Cubs didn't go down without a fight. They mounted a threat in the ninth inning against Sox closer Bobby Jenks when Derrek Lee capped his 5-for-5 day with a leadoff double and advanced to third on Daryle Ward's groundout to first base.
With one out and two bases open, Guillen elected to bring the infield in and challenge Cubs slugger Aramis Ramirez rather than walk the potential go-ahead run. Ramirez hit 4 home runs against the Sox last weekend.
"We got to go after him," Guillen said. "I'm not a guy who likes to put people on base."
Jenks started the slugger off with a high, inside fastball for a ball, then threw him two straight cutters in on his hands. Ramirez rolled the second weakly to Orlando Cabrera at shortstop for the second out, and Jenks finished off his 18th save by getting Jim Edmonds to roll out softly to second base.
The Cubs scored 5 runs through the first four innings against Sox starter Javier Vazquez, beginning with first-inning, RBI singles from Lee and Daryle Ward that staked them a 2-0 lead.
The Sox immediately countered with a 3-run first. A.J. Pierzynski singled and Jermaine Dye drove him home with a 2-run shot to center field, giving him 8 home runs and 23 RBI in interleague play this season.
Jim Thome then walked and scored on Joe Crede's double to the left-field corner against Cubs starter Sean Gallagher, who gutted out 121 pitches in 6 innings.
The Sox made it 4-2 in the second inning when Alexei Ramirez doubled and scored on Orlando Cabrera's double, but the Cubs rallied for 3 runs in the fourth to take a 5-4 lead, a surge highlighted by Lee's 2-run double.
However, Ramirez tied the game at 5-5 on a home run to center in the fourth inning before Quentin worked his personal version of shadow puppetry in the seventh.
"I was having trouble seeing the ball the whole at-bat," Quentin said of the creeping seventh-inning shade. "It was just a defensive swing at the fastball that I couldn't see that well. I was fortunate to get the bat on the ball and it carried."