Playing Without a Streak

The winning streak came to a sputtering unsure halt yesterday. The score was wobbly for the entire afternoon, and when afternoon turned to evening and a 9 inning affair turned into a 12 inning marathon, the Mariners finished on top.

Somebody told Gavin Floyd that the first batter of each inning doesn’t matter and the poor S-O-B believed them. It wasn’t until the 4th that he finally decided to cut out the act of serving up solo HRs to start off frames. 1st inning to Ichiro, 2nd inning to Smoak and the 3rd inning began with another solo shot for Ichiro. Just because the innings began with outs, and some outs are created luckier than others, doesn’t mean the runs stopped coming. The Sox put up homeruns of their own, coming from AJ, Rios, Gordo and Viciedo but couldn’t push any runs across in the final 4 innings and the winning streak came to an end.

Chris Sale will bring his stellar stuff to the mound and try to keep the team from embarking on the wrong kind of streak. Long winning streaks don’t grow on trees, and it’s highly unlikely that the Sox embark on another one that settles in the 9 or 10 range but not supplementing your wins with losses is the important part. Playing good baseball, winning series, before the streak started that was the mindset. It’s still the mindset.

When last the Sox faced Kevin Millwood, April in Seattle, he gave up 5 runs in 5.1 innings. A line that is quickly becoming known as the Gavin Floyd line. Anything approaching that today should be enough for Chris Sale to keep the Sox in the game without issue.

Today’s Lineup:

1.Lillibridge – CF
2.Beckham – 2B
3.Dunn – 1B
4.DHayan
5.Rios – RF
6.Fukudome – LF
7.Alexei – SS
8.Flowers – C
9.Escobar – 2B

Robin Ventura has elected to let some other folks in on the action today. De Aza, Konerko, AJ and O-Dog all out of the lineup to start. I just hope Gordon Beckham’s parents are there.