6-4-08: Royals 4 - Sox 6

June 4, 2006 - Chicago, Illinois

Paulie to the rescue!

This game shouldn't have gone fifteen innings. Two separate events caused this game to creep into extra innings. Alexei Ramirez is one and Bobby Jenks is the other. If one of these does not happen, the game would've been over in nine innings as a White Sox winner.

Alexei was involved in a play at the plate, where he was safe. The thing is that unbeknownst to Alexei, but knownst to the umpire, Alexei didn't quite touch home plate. The umpire never ruled one way or the other, so after several minutes of Alexei sitting in the dugout, the ball was thrown to home and the catcher stepped on home plate to erase Alexei's run.

Bobby Jenks was shaky in the ninth. This led to two runs, which tied the game up. After that, Bobby settled down and pitched wonderfully. But because these two occurrences happened, this set up Paul Konerko to be the unlikely hero in the fifteenth inning. Unlikely because Paul has not been swinging a hot bat as of late. This may be the thing to get him out of his funk.

The good:
Paul Konerko's fifteenth inning home run.

The Sox bullpen after Jenks.

The bad:
Carlos Quentin was caught stealing.

A.J. was 1 for 7.

The ugly:
Alexei Ramirez needs to make sure that he touched home plate when he scores.

Bobby Jenks blows a save, almost costing the game.

While no team is perfect, the Sox have had a knack of coming back after screwing things up. They are covering their mistakes, which is great to see. Every team will have mistakes. It's just hard trying to correct them game after game. The Sox seem to be doing just that lately.