Angels (58-51): 2
White Sox (59-48): 4

A.J. had seen Tyler Flowers make enough outs, and came in to win the game himself. (Dennis Wierzbicki-US PRESSWIRE)

Francisco Liriano has only made 2 starts for the White Sox so far but already he can be considered a boon to the rotation. He surely won over a few more fans Sunday afternoon as he donned his 1972 throwback jersey and proceeded to work through the Angels lineup with relative ease until trouble brewed in the 5th. Maicer Izturis lead off the inning with an infield hit that ricocheted hard off the leg of Liriano, Peter Bourjos followed with a bunt single and both runners were advanced by Bobby Wilson’s sacrifice bunt. The Scioscia plan completed itself one at-bat later as Mike Trout hit a fly ball to center that allowed Izturis to tag up and score the first run of the game. Liriano would have to leave the game after the inning was complete, despite having thrown only 72 pitches, due to the effects of that line drive off of his leg.

The White Sox offense in the first half of the game was entirely Paul Konerko, he contributed the only 2 hits for the home squad heading into the 6th inning. At that point Kevin Youkilis stepped in and hit a line drive HR into the Sox bullpen to knot the game at 1. It was Youk’s third homerun in two days and his eighth as a member of the proper Sox.

Nate Jones, who pitched Friday and Saturday for the Sox was called upon once again to contribute 2 more innings. It seems a lot to ask of the rookie, but he did manage to survive those 2 frames allowing only a single run despite handing out 4 hits and a walk.

With Haren out of the game for the 7th, Flowers was pulled in favor of A.J. Pierzynski to bat with a runner on first. A.J. responded by hitting his 21st HR of the year bringing his homerun streak to 5 consecutive games and the score to 3-2 good guys. An insurance run later, Addison Reed: Closer notched his 19th save of the year in support of a 5th vultured win for Nate Jones.

Plus: Big hits late. A.J.’s go-ahead HR was huge and punctuated an attack on the Angels bullpen after Dan Haren kept the Sox in check all game. Alexei also added to the tally with a triple scoring Ray Olmedo, who made his White Sox debut.

Minus: With all the health problems experienced by the White Sox this season, it’s not encouraging to see a pitcher depart the game with an ailment of any sort. Fortunately, Liriano’s injury isn’t likely to be serious and hopefully he shouldn’t miss any time as a result.

Player of the Game
A.J. Pierzynski – .362 Win Probability added

Source: FanGraphs

But worst of all, the Sox lost because* unvarnished LOOGY Leyson Septimo let three straight lefties best him while Matt Thornton sat out, fully rested.

*They also lost because they couldn’t scrape any runs together off of the strikeout-less wonder Aaron Cook, but that’s another topic.

There’s plenty of second-guessing to be done for Septimo staying in the game after walking the first two hitters in the 8th.  The spottiness of his control was known when he arrived from Charlotte, and Ventura has already had to give him a quick hook this season when it was evident that his command wasn’t there, so a tie game in the 8th inning in Boston was a less than optimal time to give Leyson his first crack at ‘working through it’.

Pressed for answers, Ventura gave a generalized ‘what would you have me do?’

“Right now you don’t have a choice,” White Sox manager Robin Ventura said. “That’s what we are. Whether it’s reasonable that you can do it, we don’t have a choice. We’ve got guys who need to grow up quick and be able to get it done. That’s just where we’re at until guys get healthy.’’

That may not completely explain why Septimo pitched to Adrian Gonzalez, but certainly points to where the temptation came from.

Right now at the end of games Robin Ventura has a closer who can’t find his slider (Reed), Nate Jones (who has been scored upon in his last three appearances), and the Matt Thornton.

Thornton finding his form and returning to the land of the sub-3.00 ERA’s has been incredibly useful, but Ventura is already riding it for all its worth.  Matt’s on pace for 70.1 innings pitched in 77 appearances for the year.  If he breaches 70 innings, that would be his highest total since 2009, but the appearances total would be a career-high.

Age 35 is not an ideal time to start setting career-highs in appearances.

With that in mind, and since Matt Thornton is not just the top lefty in the pen, but the top reliever by a mile, Ventura is understandably looking for any opportunities that can be managed by his lesser options.  If he wasn’t, he’d be finding himself calling upon #37 every time, and creating a new set of problems.

Ventura certainly wasn’t flawless Monday, but he’s in a situation that’s pushing him to be more aggressive.  He could certainly use a lot of Jesse Crain right now, and hopefully that’s about to be fixed.

But since he’s a rookie manager, it might behoove the Sox to make his margin of error a bit larger.  Calling for trades or additions is an annoying fan trait, but if the White Sox are going to talk about being the best team they can possibly be, relief help isn’t especially expensive or hard to find.

Follow James Fegan on Twitter @ JRFegan.  Also check out his full-time, daily blog, White Sox Observer

Blue Jays (43-43): 11
White Sox (47-38): 9

Robin Ventura won't be short on comments about the day's umpiring. (Dennis Wierzbicki-US PRESSWIRE)

The White Sox would make a game of it, the first two surges coming courtesy of Alex Rios who lined a 3 run HR in the first and an RBI double in the four run Sox 5th. Rios went 3-5 on the day with 4 RBI. Alexei Ramirez tripled home a pair of runs in that 5th frame and the Sox cut what was an 8-3 lead to an 8-7.

In the top of the 6th inning Septimo came in having inherited Rajai Davis as a baserunner, who was walked by Brian Omogrosso. Septimo paid no mind to Davis as he stole second, less mind to him when he stole third, and while in the process of walking Colby Rasmus, threw a ball past Flowers that brought Davis in to score. Nate Jones entered to face Jose Bautista and he lined a ball over the bag at third that was interfered with by a stadium security guard and was ruled a ground rule double. The replays were not definitive on if the ball was fair or foul in the first place, but to add insult to injury, Rasmus was awarded home despite being on first for the at-bat. When the interference occurred, Rasmus had just rounded second, leading one to believe a play at the plate would have been imminent had the ball’s path not been interrupted. One more run would be notched in the inning stretching the Jays’ lead back to 4.

As close as this game was in the end, it’s hard not to look at the poor strike calling of home plate umpire D.J. Reyburn. Strike calls in White Sox offensive innings ranged well outside of the plate while not being consistently made on the other side. Blue Jays pitchers wisely kept pounding the mark a couple inches out, forcing Sox hitters to protect and racked up quite a few strikeouts using this process. I don’t believe I’ve ever seen so many strikes called on pitches that clearly had none of the plate. After a particularly poorly called bottom of the 8th that squashed another potential rally, Robin Ventura had seen enough. As Jeff Mathis took a strike ball that crossed the plate above the knees in the top of the 9th, Robin came storming out of the dugout and let Reyburn know how he felt. I’m not sure anybody has ever seen Robin that hot, certainly not Reyburn, who tossed the skipper from the game.

A 9th inning rally did occur, but fell short of the mark and that frame, at least, didn’t seem to need any help from the umpiring crew to push it in the Blue Jays’ favor.

Plus: More clawing for the Sox. For every run that Toronto put on the board the White Sox worked to keep the game close. Unfortunately more than a couple of attempted comebacks fell victim to faulty umpiring and they never scratched their way to a victory.

Minus: It’s getting to be difficult to watch Tyler Flowers with a bat in his hand. His average dropped to .164 on Sunday afternoon as he was the only Sox starter not to reach base, and he never seemed too interested in getting there. A couple of helpless looking strikeouts summed up his day before being pulled for A.J. to enter the game in the 7th. Options aren’t there and the pitching help is more urgent as far as trade acquisitions, so Tyler is going to either have to figure out how to get hot or A.J. Pierzynski is going to be a very tired man.

Source: FanGraphs