Danks' no-hitter bid falls short; Sox lose
To beat a pitcher like Josh Beckett, it pays to be perfect.
White Sox starter John Danks took that approach Monday night, zipping through the Red Sox' lineup with little difficulty through the opening 5 innings.
Even when the left-hander hit Jacoby Ellsbury with a pitch with two outs in the sixth, he carried on and made a 1-0 lead hold up.
"I didn't see anything that wasn't working," Boston manager Terry Francona said.
Hitting Ellsbury cost Danks a perfect game, but he still had a no-hitter going until Kevin Youkilis' broken-bat single ended that bid with one out in the seventh inning.
"It was fun to have my stuff out there and watch Beckett do what he did," Danks said. "Unfortunately, we wound up on the losing end."
After the no-hitter fell, so did Danks and the White Sox' bullpen. It ended with a 5-1 loss and split with the Red Sox in the four-game series.
"It was kind of sad, because you see the kid throwing the ball real well and one hit wipes everything out," said Sox manager Ozzie Guillen. "He competed and gave us a chance to win, but unfortunately it wasn't good enough."
The White Sox took a 1-0 lead when Nick Swisher led off the third inning with a single against Beckett and moved up a base on another single by Juan Uribe.
Orlando Cabrera's flyout to deep center field allowed Swisher to tag and move to third base, and A.J. Pierzynski's sacrifice fly put the Sox in front.
"Knowing you had a 1-0 lead against a team like this, I knew there wasn't much room for error," Danks said.
The White Sox' 23-year-old starter kept his composiure after plunking Ellsbury, but the Red Sox finally caught up to Danks after Youkilis singled.
Mike Lowell followed Boston's first hit of the game with a walk, and after Jason Bay struck out, J.D. Drew lined a 2-run double into the left-center field gap to make it 2-1.
"I was able to stay down in the zone all night. I felt great,'' Danks said. "I was down against (Drew) but over the plate. I got beat by a good hitter.''
The White Sox were still in the game at that point, but the bullpen, particularly Adam Russell and Matt Thornton, took another beating.
Boston scored 3 runs off the ineffective duo in the ninth inning to win going away.
Thornton has not been close to the pitcher he was in the first half of the season.
"He's behind the hitters,'' Guillen said. "He is still throwing a good fastball, but when you're behind in the count and you throw the fastball, they will catch up to it.''
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