Jeff Torborg had a stern message for naysayers everywhere:
”Collapse, my rear end.”
The White Sox ended their scary little losing streak at five games Wednesday night with a 2-1 victory over the California Angels in front of 16,887 people in Comiskey Park.
Sammy Sosa`s homer off Mark Langston in the fifth broke a 1-1 tie and made a winner of Barry Jones (8-1), who got Greg Hibbard out of a bases-loaded jam in the fifth and followed that with two scoreless innings.
Bobby Thigpen then threw a pair of ferocious innings for his 22nd save.
”It`s good for us, leaving to play Oakland again,” said Thigpen. ”They won again, so I figured we`d win to stay four games back-but it`s important for us to go on the plane tomorrow night and go out there with a win instead of losing six in a row.”
The Sox, who open a three-game series at the Oakland-Alameda Coliseum Friday night, broke through against Langston (4-7) in the third inning when Ozzie Guillen singled with one out, stole second with two and scored on Dave Gallagher`s single up the middle.
The Angels tied it in the fifth when Rick Schu homered into the center-field bullpen on Hibbard`s first pitch of the inning. Until then, Hibbard had shut out California on three hits through four innings, one of the hits in the infield.
Kent Anderson followed the homer with a base hit. When Hibbard walked Dick Schofield with one out and Dave Winfield with two, filling the bases, Torborg yanked him rather than see him face Lance Parrish. In came Jones.
”Sure, I was disappointed,” said Hibbard of the early departure. ”But I know the situation. We`re on a five-game losing streak. If we`re winning four in a row-sure, let him go.
”Barry`s a good ground ball pitcher, you`ve got a right-hand hitter up, he went with the odds and it worked.”
Jones got Parrish on a routine bouncer to Scott Fletcher, and the tie was preserved.
”I threw a sinker in, and, fortunately, got the ground ball to get us out of the inning,” Jones said.
That set up a situation that Torborg, interestingly enough, had addressed before the game.
”Baseball is so different,” Torborg had said, ”because momentum changes from inning to inning. That`s why they say if you score, you`ve got to stop them from scoring in the bottom half of the inning.”
The Angels didn`t stop the White Sox from scoring in the bottom half of the inning. Sosa took care of that with his fifth home run of the season, a line shot on a Langston 3-2 pitch that reached the seats in left-center field just above the 382-foot sign.
Langston continued to be vulnerable and tough at the same time. Singles by Ivan Calderon and Ron Kittle put two runners on with nobody out in the sixth, but Langston got out of it by striking out Carlos Martinez
(mysteriously bunting foul-on his own-on two strikes), Ron Karkovice and Fletcher.
In the seventh, Guillen doubled with one out, got to third on Sosa`s deep drive, but stayed there as Gallagher flied out.
Those wasted chances might have hurt-except the Angels couldn`t dent the Sox bullpen. Which, it turns out, is nothing unusual when Langston is on the mound. During his seven losses, his teammates Angels have scored five runs for him while he was in the game.
”He pitched great, but we can`t score him any runs,” said California manager Doug Rader. ”He`s pitched well enough to win from the start.”
After Jones shut down the Angels through the seventh, Torborg gave a strong hint of how much he wanted this one when he went to Thigpen to start the eighth. Thigpen, the freshest pitcher in the pen, hadn`t come in that early since May 8.
He fanned Parrish, the leadoff man in the eighth, then struck out the side in the ninth.
He was pumped.
”I hadn`t been in there in a save situation in six days,” said Thigpen. ”It`s a close game, and with every strikeout, the crowd gets louder. It helps.”
So, for this team, did this victory.
”We proved something tonight,” said Torborg. ”We went out there and did the same thing we`ve done for the past five days, but we got the job done. ”I`m so darn proud of these guys.”
