Killer Let-Down Puts Sox Behind Eight Ball

After riding cloud 9 up to Detroit the Sox were in for a let-down. It was too be expected. and that's why Contreras was facing up against Verlander. So that the Sox could come down hard and then rebound to take game 2. That was the plan. The plan went a rye in the worst kind of way in that second game.

First off all, Eddie Bonine is garbage. The Sox should have scored 5/6/7 runs off this guy. They got 3 courtesy of 2 hits. He was on the ropes a few times and poor clutch hitting, double plays, or baserunning mishaps let him off the hook. Colon was far better than Bonine tonight, and the Sox did not take any advantage of it.

Secondly, the 7th inning was brutal. You have men on first and second, no out, with Wise up. Obvious idea in that situation is to bunt and then find a way to get the man in from third with the next hitter. Ozzie calls the bunt, Wise gets it down successfully. Then is where the mistake happened. The next hitter is Ramon Castro. The worst hitter on the White Sox. He is hitting .156 since coming over to the AL. You have a man sitting on your bench that was an injury away from winning the MVP last season. Put him in! Of course, Ozzie leaves Castro in the game, he fails, and the Sox walk away from the inning empty handed.

Finally and most importantly for me is the positioning during the Ordonez AB in the 8th. There is a man on first. He is the winning run. A double probably kills you. So the normal thing to do is to play no-doubles defense. For those of you who do not know what that is, it is where you play your outfielders really deep to take away balls in the gaps, and play the corners on the line to take away the shots down the line. Hawk made a comment about how the outfielders were playing deep, so I figured we were in normal no-doubles defense. Then Magglio rips a ball down the line. I immediately got excited because it was the perfect DP ball. Beckham is on the line where he should be, he throws to Getz, to Konerko, inning over. But no, Beckham is 2 steps off the line, he can;t get to it after a dive, and suddenly there is 2nd and 3rd one out in a tie game in the 8th. See ya, Sox.

So now, as great as yesterday was with the perfect game and the Tigers and Twins losses, today was actually worse than yesterday was good. I know the perfect game was awesome and I will take yesterday in exchange for today any time. But yesterday before play we were 1 game out. Today we are 2. Tomorrow and Sunday aren't going to be easy either.