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Sunday, October 23, 2005
Towering homers keep Sox believin’
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
They’re supposed to be the purveyors of Little Ball, but they won Game 2 with two Big Bangs. They were being lampooned as the biggest chokers in baseball history, and now they stand two games from being champions. They’re the Chicago White Sox and, in case you haven’t been paying attention, they’re a remarkably resilient bunch. Their theme song is Journey’s hoary “Don’t Stop Believin’,” and the Sox haven’t and don’t.
They won the ALCS on the momentum built from a strikeout with nobody aboard and two out in the bottom of the ninth. We’ve all seen the A.J. Pierzynski-Josh Paul-Doug Ed- dings third strike a thousand times now, and Game 2 of the World Series offered another installment of Stump The Ump. Jermaine Dye, once a Brave, faced a full count with two out and two on in the seventh, his team two runs in arrears. Dye started to swing at Dan Wheeler’s inside pitch and then tried to hold up. And then plate umpire Jeff Nelson pointed toward first.
Dye hadn’t swung and missed, Nelson ruled. Wheeler’s pitch had brushed Dye’s forearm, or some such body part. Replays indicated the ball had actually struck Dye’s bat. This being baseball, replay is used only for dramatic television effect, not to overturn erring arbiters. Pierzynski was allowed to take first in the ALCS, and that play changed the series. On this nasty night Dye took his base, and a World Series might have turned on the next pitch.
Chad Qualls relieved Wheeler. His first delivery came in high and was driven out low and fast. Paul Konerko, the biggest slugger among Chisox, sent a liner screaming through the rain and chill over the left-field fence. Never let it be said that the White Sox don’t know how to seize a gift. Or a moment.
Even a moment they nearly let slip away. Bobby Jenks, the hefty reliever who had overwhelmed the Astros one night earlier, came on to work the ninth and wound up being himself overwhelmed by Jeff Bagwell, who had struck out against Jenks in Game 1, and by Jose Vizcaino, the professional hitter who had, in the 2000 Subway Series, won Game 1 for the Yankees in extra innings.
With two out and two runners in scoring position, Vizcaino drove Jenks’ first pitch into left field. Braves-killer Chris Burke scored the tying run by sliding around Pierzynski’s tag, Scott Posednik having made a terrific throw from left field. We would hear more from Mr. Posednik, more very soon.
Brad Lidge, who was foiled by Albert Pujols six days before, was summoned to protect the tie in the bottom of the ninth. He retired Jose Uribe on a deep fly ball. Then Posednik, 0-for-4 on the night and homer-less in the regular season, launched an even deeper drive to right-center, the missile clearing the fence and ending the game and sending the Series to Houston on a rousing note. It could well end there.
“That’s when you know stuff is going your way,” said Ozzie Guillen, the White Sox manager, speaking of Posednik’s homer.
Phil Garner had expressed the same sentiment 10 minutes earlier, saying, “Even when they break a bat, they move the runner over.”
And yes, the Astros have Roy Oswalt going for them in Game 3, but that’s about all they have working right now.
And to think: Not quite a month ago, the White Sox were being ripped for having squandered 13 1/2 of a 15-game lead against onrushing Cleveland. They’ve since won 14 of 15 games, and they’re halfway to their first World Series title since 1917. This is the Windy City, and the wind is definitely at the back of the Sox.
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Loyalty is admirable, but Astros can’t afford it
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
Chicago — Phil Garner listened to his heart. Maybe next time he’ll take heed of his head.
Phil Garner manages the Astros. Jeff Bagwell is among the noblest of Astros, a pillar of both team and community. Jeff Bagwell had shoulder surgery earlier this season and isn’t close to being himself. The Astros admit as much. They don’t even consider letting him play the field. But this being the World Series and Game 1 being in an American League park, the National League champs found themselves in the unaccustomed position of having a designated hitter.
And Phil Garner found himself in a pickle.
Sentiment held — nay, screamed — that Bagwell had to be the DH. He’d given too much to the franchise, and finally the Astros, after 43 years of flailing, had reached a Fall Classic. Baggie, as he’s known, deserved this moment. Garner, it was written in The Houston Chronicle, had to give it to him.
Garner gave it to him.
And the Astros lost.
And their last good chance died when Bagwell struck out with the tying run at third.
“I shouldn’t say [it was] purely a baseball decision because there’s no question there’s some sentimentality in here,” Garner said before Game 1. “You guys have heard me say all along that this organization is what it is because of what Jeff Bagwell and Craig Biggio have been. They’ve been there a decade and a half. The reason our fan base is so big is because of what they brought to the organization… . So there’s a lot of other reasons to have him be a DH, but the overriding reason is that he’s a good player. And if the game is on the line, I’d just as soon have Jeff Bagwell up there tonight as anybody.”
Top of the eighth, two out, Astros on the corners. Morgan Ensberg and Mike Lamb had just struck out against the lefthander Neal Cotts. (And why, with Braves-killer Chris Burke at his disposal, did Garner not deploy him for the lefty-swinging Lamb?) And now Ozzie Guillen summoned Bobby Jenks, the mammoth reliever with the mighty fastball, to face Bagwell. And the confrontation ended not as sentimentality would have preferred, sentiment being no match for a 100 mph heater.
Jenks threw six pitches to Bagwell. The slowest was clocked at 98 mph. Three topped triple digits on the ol’ radar gun. Bagwell gave it a go, fouling off two pitches, but in the end the flesh was simply too slow. Jenks struck out the eminent Astro, and the White Sox took the lead in a World Series that figures to be a hairbreadth thing.
“That’d be a good challenge for all of us,” said Garner, speaking of Bagwell vs. Jenks. “Nobody hit Jenks. I thought [Bagwell] swung the bat pretty well tonight.”
Garner hasn’t said what he’ll do for a DH against the lefthander Mark Buehrle in Game 2 Sunday night: “We’ll wait to do that.” But sentiment can’t override common sense. Bagwell did drive in a run as a pinch hitter against the Braves in Game 1 of the division series, but he hasn’t had a postseason hit since. He had only one at-bat in the NLCS, and nothing he did Saturday lobbied for an increased workload. He was 0-for-2, twice being plunked by Jose Contreras. He didn’t look like the Bagwell of old. He looked like an old Bagwell.
“He doesn’t have the power he had,” Garner had said before the game. “But he can still put the bat on the ball. He can still give you good at-bats, and that’s what I saw the month of September and during the playoffs. He probably won’t hit any home runs, but he’s not going to have to. He’s going to be in situations where he can put the ball in play and help us win a ballgame.”
Jeff Bagwell had his chance in Game 1. He couldn’t put the ball in play. Maybe his team would have lost no matter who its DH was. And maybe his team will have a different DH come Game 2.
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