Sox Ignore Everything They Heard About Rangers, Score 19 Runs

Chris Sale didn’t have a whole lot of trouble carving up the offense belonging to the team with the best record in baseball. Over his 7.1 innings he only allowed 5 hits, and just a single run. Had he needed to go further, he could have. But he certainly didn’t need to. The White Sox offense erupted on Texas to the tune of 19 runs creating the most lopsided victory of the season.

Rangers (50-31): 2
White Sox (43-37): 19

It would be safe to say that Roy Oswalt didn’t have it. The Sox jumped all over him in the first inning with homeruns from Kevin Youkilis, his first as a White Sox, Adam Dunn and Alex Rios. Four runs in the 1st would seem comfortable enough but 3 more were added in the 2nd behind hits from De Aza, Youkilis, Dunn and Paul Konerko. Now seven, seven is a nice comfortable lead. The Sox were still not finished, the 5th inning saw the end of Roy Oswalt, his final line was not pretty: 13 hits and 11 runs allowed in 4.2 innings. His successor didn’t do too much better and the Pale Hose scored nine times in the inning.

Everybody in the starting lineup had hits, multiple hits, except for Gordon Beckham. A.J. Pierzynski looked like he was headed down the hitless road as well, swinging hard each time up, clearly looking to show up Ron Washington, the AL All-Star manager that overlooked him for the team. But in that 5th inning, he connected with the pitch he was looking for and launched a 3-run homerun.

How about a little multi-hit roll call:

Alejandro De Aza: 2-5 with a triple.
Kevin Youkilis: 3-5, 4 RBI, HR; Safe to say he got on the home fans’ good side.
Adam Dunn: 2-2, 2 BB and a Donkey Punch, his 25th of the year.
Paul Konerko: 2-4; his 2nd hit coming after Ron Washington inexplicably walked Adam Dunn to load the bases, preferring to pitch to the league’s best hitter.
Alex Rios: 3-4, 3 RBI, HR; he is ridiculously hot right now.
A.J. Pierzynski: 3-5, 3 RBI, HR; those first two Ks were the only outs he made.
Dayan Viciedo: 2-4, but nooo RBI; hmph.
Alexei Ramirez: 3-5; my favorite being his laser that never changed height and bounced off the left field wall down the line. It looked like a play from Ken Griffey Jr. Baseball on Super Nintendo.

Plus: Chris Sale furthered proved that he belongs in the All-Star game and that he is one of the best pitchers in the league by quieting the best offense in all of baseball. Also that 19 runs, 21 hits, 0 errors looks pretty slick up on the board.

Minus: I’m sorry, I’ve got nothing to offer you here. That they didn’t score 20?

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