For White Sox, it's all going badly in 10-1 loss to Indians
The more bad games they play - and Friday night's 10-1 loss to the Indians at U.S. Cellular Field definitely falls into that category - the more difficult it's becoming for even the White Sox to believe they are eventually going to turn around their miserable season.
"We're here to win as many ballgames as we can and unfortunately it hasn't been that many so far," Sox starter John Danks said. "But we've been saying that all along, it's been getting kind of old, but we're way better than we're playing right now. So we've got to turn it around tomorrow."
The sun will come up on Saturday, but the White Sox look anything like a team prepared to move up in the AL Central.
"Three things happened today: bad pitching, bad hitting, bad game," Sox manager Ozzie Guillen said. "I can't describe this game anyway else."
Actually, that's not a bad description for the season as a whole.
The White Sox weren't hitting early in the year and the pitching has dropped way off the last couple of weeks. In Friday's loss, their seventh in 10 games to the last-place Indians, the Sox served up the combo platter.
"You can still say we have a long season, but we understand the urgency I think to get some wins here or try," second baseman Gordon Beckham said. "It just seems like anything that can go wrong is going wrong. Maybe mentally we have to change that and mentally we have to change our mind-set and really grind this out. It's not going our way.
"Nobody is throwing a pity party. It's just not going our way. And until it turns, it will be frustrating. Ozzie always says you want to come to the park and enjoy yourself and have fun. It's not fun right now when we keep losing."
The Sox were winning 1-0 on Alexei Ramirez's solo home run heading into the sixth inning, but Cleveland knocked out Danks in the sixth with 4 runs and kept adding against relievers Sergio Santos and Scott Linebrink.
"I think Danks threw the ball well," Guillen said. "Danks, the last few starts, he's had a lot of trouble against lefties. This game is about adjustments and he has to make adjustments how to get lefties out or get ahead."
When he was lifted after getting just one out in the sixth inning, Danks slammed his glove and cap in the dugout.
"The first five innings were good," Danks said. "We were winning 1-0. Couldn't get an out there in the sixth inning. You know, it (stinks). It's part of the game but at the same time it's getting old. This is probably the most frustrated I've been in a long time. It's pretty (bleep) right now."
<p class="factboxheadblack">Scot Gregor's game tracker</p> <p class="News">Indians 10, White Sox 1</p> <p class="News"><b>Cy Masterson:</b> The Sox had Justin Masterson on the ropes early, but the Cleveland starter survived and snapped his 11-game losing streak after allowing 1 run on 5 hits and 6 walks in 52/3 innings.</p> <p class="News"><b>Hitting the wall:</b> White Sox starter John Danks had a shutout going through 5 innings, but he took the loss after allowing 4 runs in the sixth. In his last 7 starts, the left-hander is 1-5 with a 5.05 ERA.</p> <p class="News"><b>Bright spot:</b> Alexei Ramirez accounted for the lone run with a solo homer in the fourth inning. The shortstop is batting .318 with 3 HR and 11 RBI over his last 19 games.</p> <div class="infoBox"> <h1>More Coverage</h1> <div class="infoBoxContent"> <div class="infoArea"> <h2>Stories</h2> <ul class="links"> <li><a href="/story/?id=385909">Guillen: Garcia is a savior<span class="date"> [6/4/10]</span></a></li> </ul> </div> </div> </div>