No Offense, But We Aren't Hitting

The White Sox bats continued to be in slumber mode during tonight's 5-2 loss to Seattle. Jarrod Washburn picked up his second win by holding the White Sox’s hitters to four hits over seven innings while striking out four. The Sox offense looked anemic all night with the only offense coming on two solo homeruns by Luis Terrero and AJ Pierzinski. The Sox called Terrero up before the game to replace Brian Anderson. They sent Anderson back to AAA yesterday.

Unfortunately, the relief pitching was almost as bad as the offense. Mike MacDougal came in to an eighth inning one on and one out situation, and he gave up a 2-2 double to the Mariners’ third basemen, Adrian Beltre. Beltre was three for four with two runs score in the game. Left-hander Matt Thornton then relieved MacDougal. Thornton struck out the switch-hitting Jose Vidro before allowing a 0-2 two RBI single to Raul Ibanez turning a 3-2 deficit to a 5-2 deficit and effectively ending the ballgame.

The sad part of it was that the poor offense ruined a solid effort by the White Sox defensively and Javier Vazquez on the mound. Vazquez allowed four earned runs in 7.1 innings pitched, but one of those earned runs was the inherited runner that scored when Thornton was pitching. Defensively, the Sox did not allow an error all game long and had a couple of nice defensive plays. Third basemen Pablo Ozuna made a great catch against the railing in the fifth on a Jose Lopez pop-up. Then, in the sixth, the Mariners had runners on first and third with Richie Sexson at the plate and one out. Sexson had already hit a homerun earlier in the game. He flew out to Luis Terrero in deep center for an apparent sacrifice fly. However, Terrero realized that the runner on first was also tagging and fired to shortstop Juan Uribe who made the tag just before Beltre could score from third. It was a great defensive highlight that kept the Sox in the ballgame.