Alex Rios Leads Sox to Sweep of Mariners

John Danks wasn’t great, but he also wasn’t awful. He went 6 innings and struck out 6 officially allowing 4 runs. Some of that was due to defensive ineptitude, including a rather confusing play in which he attempted to pick a runner off of first and Adam Dunn stood like a statue, never having seen the throw over leaving the always reliable back-up man Gordon Beckham to go run it down. A couple of plays aside, the defense did not make complete fools of themselves and in the end, it was enough to give Danks a victory.

White Sox: 7
Mariners: 4

Sweeping the M’s in Safeco is quickly becoming a yearly tradition. The Mariners on the whole against the White Sox have been pretty helpless winning just 3 out of the last 22 contests. Offense came from all over in this one, every Sox starter except Gordon Beckham managed a hit. Kosuke Fukudome got his first White Sox RBI in the 6th via sacrifice fly which put the Sox up for good. He enjoyed the experience so much he went ahead and plated AJ in the 8th to put some padding on the Sox lead. Alex Rios also had an excellent game going 3 for 4 coming up just a HR short of the cycle. Alex has his average up past the point of respectable and is forming into a player that we can be proud of having in the middle of the lineup.

Joe McEwing was his usual oil hinged self, first aggressively sending Lillibridge home on an Alexei Ramirez double to score and later on sent Kosuke Fukudome to his demise at the hands of Ichiro Suzuki. The throw by Ichiro was absolutely on point and anything less would have allowed Kosuke to score, so I’m very much in favor of the move. Sometimes you get thrown out.

The bullpen is back to being solid, the combination of Addison Reed (struck out side), Matt Thornton (1-2-3) and Hector Santiago (just 1 hit, it didn’t leave the park) closed down the game.

Plus: Alex Rios swinging the bat well is a refreshing site. Seeing a player come through on their potential from time to time is a thing of beauty. He’s riding a 10 game hitting streak at the moment so that should be motivation to keep swinging.

Minus: Sometimes Paul Konerko needs to not play the field. He’s got a problem with his foot and I’m sure every moment he gets to rest is appreciated. But Adam Dunn’s space moment on the attempted pickoff as he played first was a terror to watch.

Tipping Point:
My eyes – it only tied the game but Alex Rios’ triple turned the tide in my eyes.
The numbers – The Rios triple was in fact the biggest shift in the game, good for a 34.4% change in win expectancy.

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