Alejandro D’oh! Aza

A 4-1 lead in the 8th inning evaporated one homer at a time as the White Sox bullpen surrendered 3 solo homeruns. One each for Matt Weiters, Nolan Reimold and Adam Jones. The latter two served up by Hector Santiago as he blew the first save of his career. In the 10th Alejandro De Aza, for the second straight day, looked absolutely foolish in Center Field as a Mark Reynolds long fly found its way through De Aza’s glove. From there things only got uglier and the Sox would eventually lose the series opener to the Orioles.

Orioles: 10
White Sox: 4

For the second consecutive game we watched our starter go out and use his pitches inefficiently but manage to be effective while the opposing starter used his pitches about as economically as could be asked. Humber did manage to finish with a decent line, 5.1 IP with 7 K’s and only the 1 run allowed as he continuously worked himself into and out of trouble. On the other side of the ledger Jake Arrieta worked well but got no help at all from his defense which played a sloppy, sloppy game committing 3 errors giving the Sox extra outs and extra bases wherever they could manage.

One man’s Brent trash is another man’s (or that same man’s) Brent treasure. Robin Ventura nearly emerged from the outrage that is Brent Morel in the 2 spot looking pretty good by pinch running Brent Lillibridge for Dayan Viciedo in the 7th inning. Lillibridge would steal second and reach third on a throwing error by Matt Weiters. Later that inning a pop foul from Alejandro De Aza that would pull Nolan Reimold into the stands allowed the quicker Brent to tag up and score. Unfortunately it would not turn out to be a move that could be pointed to as a pivotal point in the game.

Plus: Ladies and Gentleman, Paul Konerko is a professional hitter. With the game tied at one apiece in the 6th, Paulie stroked a double into right field to score a pair and put the Sox up. With that double, Konerko has hit in every single game this year. Add that to a hit in his last game of 2011 and he’s working on a 9 game hitting streak.

Minus: The biggest let down…the bullpen? De Aza? Hard to say what hurt more but the win expectancy graph says the Adam Jones bomb. The guy is swinging a hot bat and now it’s only hotter. The bullpen numbers that have been built up so far this season are pretty much washed out at this point.

Source:

You can follow Matt on Twitter @2012WhiteSox and keep up to date with all of Southside Showdown’s happenings by liking our Facebook page.