Chicago White Sox: Remembering Bobby Jenks’ run to the MLB
The Chicago White Sox had some brilliant pitching in 2005. Their new closer, Bobby Jenks, had a magical run for this team.
The Chicago White Sox had many things come together for them when they won the World Series in 2005. Lots of things went their way in order to capture that title. One of those things was the fact that they had a great closer come out of nowhere. Bobby Jenks came up from the Minor Leagues late in the season and was awesome for the White Sox. His 100 mph or harder stuff was brilliant for the White Sox en route to a title.
In 2005, he was brilliant when needed in the postseason. He had a total of four saves in six appearances throughout that playoff year. That might sound like a light total but that is because he wasn’t needed one time in the American League Championship Series against the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. He had two saves in the Divisional Round against the Boston Red Sox and two against the Houston Astros in the World Series.
Putting together a postseason run like that helped Jenks carve out a pretty nice Major League career. He would go on to play a total of six more seasons in the big leagues. All of them were with the White Sox except for his final year which he spent with the Red Sox. He was an All-Star closer in both 2006 and 2007. He had a total of 81 saves in those two years combined so it was clear that he was effective in his role as the closer.
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In order to succeed in this game, you need a guy to come in and lock it down when the steaks are the highest. Jenks was the perfect complement to a very good rotation that came ahead of him. In 2005, with guys like Mark Buehrle, Jon Garland, Freddy Garcia, and Jose Contreras ahead of him, they carried most of the pitching weight and then Jenks shut the door at the end. It was a lethal combination for most of the postseason.