Mark Buehrle = Gamer. While it would be trivial to constantly harp on the fact that tomorrow he'll be home in Missouri to attend his grandfather's funeral, even he admitted to being emotional before tonight's start. So, even if you take all that out of the equation, and just know that Buehrle opted to pitch on short rest and help his struggling team maintain their slim division lead, you have to admire his huevos. And then all he did was go out and shut down the best offense in the American League. Texas honestly threatened to score once tonight with a few minor threats sprinkled in there for good measure. In the 2nd, only leading 1-0, Buehrle allowed a lead-off triple to Hank Blalock and then proceeded to keep the next three Rangers on the infield, retiring Brandon Boggs, Chris Davis, and Jarrod Saltalamacchia on two infield groundouts and a popout to second. The White Sox offense took care of the rest, pounding Luis Mendoza, the same young righty who shut them down last week in Arlington, to the tune of 10 runs on 12 hits. The offense was fueled tonight by Jermaine Dye's 3-4 night in his return from that nasty looking HBP Sunday against Kansas City, a 3-run bomb by Nick Swisher in the 4th, and Alexei Ramirez's first career grand slam in the 7th inning.
Its hard to quantify what Mark Buehrle has meant to this team over the years. From the 2001 season, when he went from unknown 22-year-old to the staff ace, to his brilliant season in 2005 that was topped when he came out of the bullpen on short rest to close out Game 3 of the World Series, to his no-hitter, and now to tonight. I don't remember exactly when, but a while ago Mark said he didn't expect to pitch into his 40's the way guys like Greg Maddux and Tom Glavine have and he'd never make a serious push at 300 wins. Maybe that's easy to say when you're in your late-20's and maybe minds change over time, but if it's true, its likely we've already seen the majority of Mark's career pass. He's never had overpowering stuff, he doesn't have an eye-popping page at baseball-reference.com, and he's never been a "me-first" athlete that is so typical today. He's been a consistent winner, the consummate team-first player, and a treasure for Sox fans to watch this past decade.
Let's remember to appreciate him while we still can.
B-R.com Box Score & Play-by-Play | Tribune recap | MLB.com Wrap | Associated Press recap | Soxmachine.com recap
Elsewhere, in the Central, the Twins lost again to the Yankees, 8-2 tonight. The loss drops them 1½ games behind the Sox and 21-26 on the road this year. The Tigers, however, kept pace with the Sox by beating Kansas City for the 2nd straight night, 7-1. Cleveland dropped a 3-2 decision to the Angels, keeping them in a statistical tie for last place with the Royals. Both teams are 12 games behind the Sox.
On the injury front, the Sox received mixed news. Joe Crede was a late scratch from tonight's game with back stiffness. Juan Uribe filled in admirably for Crede, going 2-4 with a double and run scored, plus he played a great third base, making a few very nice plays in support of Buehrle. Ozzie said Crede is expected to miss tomorrow's game against Texas, so Crede will have 3 days off with Thursday's travel day, before this weekend's critical series in Detroit kicks off Friday night.
Jermaine Dye was back in the lineup today and didn't miss a beat. As mentioned, Dye was 3-4 with a pair of runs scored and an RBI on a nice double, just inside the third base line in the 1st inning that scored Carlos Quentin from first base. Jose Contreras also had good news for the Sox, throwing before tonight's game and feeling no discomfort related to the elbow tendonitis that landed him on the 15-Day D.L. The move was retroactive to July 14, so Jose would be eligible to start just before the Trade Deadline, giving the Sox one last look at him before they decide whether or not to put all their chips in with his cards. No word yet, however, if he'll come right back to the Sox or will make a rehab start in the minor leagues somewhere.
I sure hope Clayton Richard didn't invest in that Rosetta Stone language learning software because A) it costs more than $500 per language (!), B) you can find them for half that price on eBay, and C) his call up the White Sox will cost him his roster spot on the American Olympic team. No surprise, of course, and I'm pretty sure almost any player would take a promotion to the Show in the middle of a pennant race over a week-long, meaningless international tournament, but that means now you'll have no need to watch the baseball segment of the Beijing Olympics (if you were actually going to watch them, anyway).
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