Melido Perez surrendered seven runs and nine hits in just two innings Saturday night as the White Sox had their eight-game winning streak broken 10-7 by the New York Yankees and dropped out of first place, a game behind Oakland.
A Comiskey Park crowd of 38,078 fans saw the Yankees rip six singles off Perez and take a 4-0 lead in the first inning.
Trailing 7-0, the Sox made it 7-5 when Sammy Sosa homered in the third and they added four runs in the fourth, highlighted by three doubles.
But the Sox gave up too much too early and were unable to come back all the way. The Yankees hammered out a season-high 16 hits. The Sox had 14, three apiece by Robin Ventura and Scott Fletcher.
Rookie Jim Leyritz hit two home runs and drove in four runs. Roberto Kelly also homered for the Yanks. Leyritz`s two run shot with nobody out in the third made it 7-0 and KO`d Perez.
The Yankees blistered Perez for six singles and four runs as he struggled through a 34-pitch first inning that brought boos from the big crowd.
Steve Sax, Don Mattingly and Mel Hall hit successive singles, loading the bases with one out. Sax`s hit was No. 1,500 of his big-league career. Perez retired Matt Nokes on a fly to short right for the second out, but Jesse Barfield singled to center, scoring Sax and Mattingly. Leyritz and Kevin Maas ran the score to 4-0 with RBI singles.
The Sox had two widely different singles in their first inning. Ventura beat out a deftly executed 55-foot bunt, and Dan Pasqua smashed a screaming 355-foot line single off the right-field fence that sent Ventura to third. Ron Kittle stranded them when he popped to center to end the inning.
The Yanks extended their lead to 5-0 in the second when a two-out single by Hall brought home Kelly, who had led off with a walk and advanced to third on two infield groundouts.
Perez departed amid boos before he had retired a batter in the third. Barfield led off with a single, and Leyritz belted his first major-league home run several rows into the left-field seats. That made it 7-0, and brought in Wayne Edwards to pitch.
Edwards quickly achieved what Perez could not. He retired the Yanks on eight pitches, striking out Kelly.
The Sox lanched Operation Comeback in a modest way in the third when Sosa slugged his seventh homer, a solo shot to left. They got serious about their comeback in the fourth when they rapped out five hits, three of them doubles, to chase LaPoint and score four runs to make it 7-5.
Kittle led off with a 400-foot double to center and scored on Fisk`s two- base hit to right. Gallagher made it 7-3 when his single to center scored Fisk. Fletcher then put runners on second and third with nobody out when he doubled to center.
Ozzie Guillen bunted right back to the mound, but Gallagher, caught in the hotbox between third and home, avoided a tag until runners again reached second and third. Sosa`s infield out scored Fletcher, and Ventura`s single brought in Guillen.
New York padded its lead to 9-5 with two runs in the sixth. Kelly scored the first one when he hammered Edwards` first pitch of the inning for a homer. Mattingly scored an unearned run when he reached on a fielder`s choice, advanced to second on an error by Kittle, took third on another groundout and came home on Nokes` infield single. Pall replaced Edwards in the sixth.
Rallying again, the Sox made it 9-6 in the sixth when Sosa tripled to deep center and scored on Ventura`s line single to right. Guillen had grounded into a double play just before the triple, costing the Sox a bigger inning.
The Yankees ran their hit total to 15 when Alvaro Espinoza and Kelly singled in the seventh, but Pall started an inning-ending double play.
The Sox had runners on first and third with nobody out in the eighth when Lance Johnson walked and Fletcher singled. But they netted only one run, on Guillen`s groundout, and it was 9-7.
Leyritz gave the Yankees another three-run lead in the ninth with a homer off Ken Patterson. Dave Righetti set down the Sox in the ninth for his 16th save. Reliever Jeff Robinson got the win.
