Manager Jeff Torborg and second baseman Fred Manrique talked in Torborg`s office before Saturday`s game. Manrique has been troubled by his lack of playing time.
”I just wanted him to know what was going on,” said Torborg, who told Manrique he`s sitting primarily because of the right-handers the White Sox have been facing. Manrique, who pinch-hit in the eighth and struck out, and Steve Lyons have been platooning at second since Carlos Martinez was moved into the third-base job after the All-Star break.
– When Manrique stayed in Saturday`s game at second base, it gave the White Sox an all-Latin infield: Martinez (Venezuela) at third, Ozzie Guillen
(Venezuela) at short, Manrique (Venezuela) at second and Ivan Calderon
(Puerto Rico) at first.
– Torborg`s six-man rotation rotates this way for the three-game series with Seattle starting Monday in Chicago: Monday, Jerry Reuss; Tuesday, Eric King;
Wednesday, Greg Hibbard.
– Left-hander Ken Patterson pitched Saturday for the first time since July 5 and retired all four men he faced. ”In the beginning, we were working on his mechanics,” Torborg explained. ”Since then, it`s just been that game situations didn`t dictate (using him).”
– Sox broadcaster Tom Paciorek had vowed to shave his head if the Sox won eight straight. Paciorek was a no-show Saturday. ”His life is in danger,”
joked Torborg.
– Carlton Fisk, given a rest Saturday, has 26 home runs in 77 games against his old club. That works out to 55 homers over a 162-game season.
Fisk on aluminum bats in the majors:
”If they`re going to use aluminum bats, they definitely have to tone down the action of it. They couldn`t use the aluminum bat the way it is right now. Somebody would get killed. Literally get killed.
”That ball that hit Jerry Reuss the other day in the chest? It would`ve gone right through him.”
– Yankees first baseman Don Mattingly on Fisk: ”He`s a great, great player, a quality player. He`s an example for kids-for all of us, really-in the way he plays and keeps himself in shape, and the way he goes after the game. It makes him special.”
