Embarrassing

(April 26)

Short Take:  Lower than whale poop.

The worst.  The absolute worst.  It's hard to fathom a more embarrassing loss for Sox Fans to endure.  The Sox spotted their starting pitcher a lead, stood by as he kicked it away, then simply watched the game slip further and further out of reach.  The final score was 16-6 and it was every bit as ugly as you might imagine.

Oakland committed two errors, so perhaps the "defense wins games" crowd needs to have this box score presented to them framed for their wall.  For fear of making too many errors, it took twenty games for Jerry Manuel to finally field the line up that won the White Sox 95 games last year.  They didn't give up any errors and scored six runs--the most in a week.  

So why did they lose?  In a nutshell:  Jim Parque.

After his last start, a complete-game showboat performance, the headlines hardly noted that the four earned runs Parque allowed mostly came in the sixth inning--the very inning he usually got pulled by Manuel.  Manuel left him in and we still lost.

Parque saved Manuel the trouble in this outing.  Spotted a two-run lead by Carlos Lee's two-run dinger in the second inning, Parque went straight out and fed his gopher twice, good for four Oakland runs.  He was getting shelled in the fourth inning too, when Manuel came and got him.  

The rest of the game is a blur.  Between screams and sofa pillows striking the TV screen, it appeared Sean Lowe, Kelly Wunsch, and Gary Glover were being used as cannon fodder.  There were some meaningless Sox runs scored.  I could swear I heard the announcer say the Sox cut the deficit to 9-6.

Ray Durham got on base twice in five appearances, including his career 1,000th hit.  Number 2 hitter Jose Valentin was a giant 0-fer.  Frank Thomas got one hit, while Magglio Ordonez continued to improve, a 2 for 3 performance.  Chris Singleton had a dinger!

The roof caved in in the ninth inning and no Sox Fan should have to recap that disaster.  Suffice to say Eric Chavez crushed one so deep it landed on the outfield concourse beyond the seats in right-centerfield.  This whole game was pathetic.

Sox Fans biggest worries might have been Manuel using this mess as an excuse to stick Royce Clayton back at shortstop or let Jim Parque pitch nine innings again sometime soon.  Instead Manuel said he felt the team got better swings this game (maybe he'll use this line up some more!), and Parque needs to get more velocity "wherever" it comes.  Could that be Charlotte?

Jerry Manuel wasn't named A.L. manager of the year because he's stupid.