Tribe Stopped Cold!

(April 10)

Short Take:  Clutch hits for dramatic comeback victory   

It was cold and at times the baseball was ugly.  Sox Fans, we'll take it just the same!  The Pale Hose shutdown Cleveland across the final 4.1 innings and successfully battle back for an 8-7 victory.  They go for the sweep Wednesday afternoon at Comiskey.

Jim Parque pitched on three days rest.  Jerry Manuel kept everyone guessing into the afternoon whether the lefty or right-hander Cal Eldred would start.  Eldred's stiff neck will hold him back for the start in Wednesday's finale.  

Sox Fans were fretting in the first inning.  Cleveland scored twice helped by two Sox errors.  In the bottom-half, Jose Valentin was left stranded at thirdbase when Magglio Ordonez struck out looking.  The Sox clean up hitter remains in a funk, an 0 for 5 performance with two strikeouts.

Paul Konerko jumpstarted the Sox offense with a leadoff homer to start the third.  Cleveland returned the favor by committing two errors of their own leading to two more Sox runs and a 3-2 lead.  Next Cleveland played long ball with Jim Parque, the big blows coming off the bat of the "experts'" consensus comeback player of the year, Juan Gonzalez, for a two-run dinger and a solo shot by mere-mortal Marty Cordova.  

The Sox appeared in deep stuff in the fifth, having allowed two runs, down 7-5, and bases loaded with one out.  Jerry Manuel went to bullpen for Gary Glover and Sox fortunes changed dramatically.

Glover got Cordova to ground into a double play, then pitched another three scoreless and hitless innings to give Sox bats the chance to catch up.  He threw 36 pitches, 24 for strikes, striking out one with no walks.  That definitely wasn't Scott Eyre out there for the Sox!  The foolishness of Gord Ash revealed yet again!

Carlos Lee hit a solo dinger in the fifth but the real heroics didn't occur till the eighth.  Down 0-2 in the count, Herbert Perry battled back to work the count full, then doubled home Lee to tie the score.  Jerry Manuel had Royce Clayton run for Lee and Sandy Alomar brought him home with the go-ahead run on a shot back up the middle.  

The threatened but couldn't score more leaving closer Keith Foulke with the job of shutting down the Tribe for the ninth.  One single and three outs later, the Sox completed the best victory of the season so far.

Plenty more to follow!