Pitchers Perform, Hitters Halt

This last game cemented my feeling on the series for me. Sure, there’s one more game to be played, but let’s look at the first three. The Sox are trailing 1-2. That ratio is about the same as the Orioles’ overall record (Which stands at a robust 37-74).

So why are the Sox treating a team that is almost 40 games under .500 like they are the New York Yankees in the first round of the playoffs? Why are the Sox having such a hard time winning?

Admittedly, the Sox pitching wasn’t at its best. John Danks started out shaky, Gavin Floyd gave up his first home run in a really long time. But between them, they only gave up 3 runs. And yet the Sox could overcome this “great” deficit only once. This last game, Buehrle gave up 4 runs. Not his best outing. But not exactly a momentous amount of runs to overcome. It was only when the Great and Powerful Ramon Castro hit a 2-run home run in the top of the 9th inning that the offense looked vaguely alive. The score ended at an anemic 3-4.

And the buck doesn’t stop there. The sox pick up two “souvenirs” (obviously not excuses. We’ve seen the promo plenty of times) from their previous two games. A.J. Pierzynski “tweaked” his ankle running the bases. He seems to be alright, but he was nevertheless taken out of the game and given a day of rest. Gordon Beckham pulled his groin. He’ll probably be out tomorrow, and for who knows how long. Mark Teahen’s voodoo doll must be working. (Because, coincidentally, this happened right after Kenny Williams said Teahen won’t be back for a “long time”.)

The Sox really need to do better than this. They should not be struggling to score on a team that needs to win all of the games left in the season just to reach .500 (Slight exaggeration, I know!) They need timely wins, and they REALLY need to beat the Twins when they come to the cell in a couple of days.