Unlike the case of Frank Thomas, no one has thought of attaching the nickname ”Big” in front of the names of Robin Ventura and Dan Pasqua.
But playing in a lineup Sunday in which five of the eight position players were under 6 feet tall, the 6-1 Ventura and the 6-0 Pasqua seemed like relative giants at the plate.
Perhaps that feeling of size went to their heads because the two supplied all the power the surging White Sox needed to beat Minnesota 4-3 before 41,900 at Comiskey Park.
The victory was the Sox`s 20th in their final at-bat this year, as well as the 13th in their last 17 games. It left them only 2 1/2 games out of first place in the American League West at the All-Star break with a 43-37 record. Last year, they were one game out at the break, despite being 18 games over .500.
”Twenty times in the last at-bat,” manager Jeff Torborg marveled.
”Holy smoke! That`s unbelievable.”
It was Pasqua who tagged Twins reliever Mark Guthrie (5-5) for a solo homer leading off the eighth inning to provide the winning margin and Ventura who socked a two-run homer to straightaway center in the third, his third home run in as many days.
After hitting only nine career home runs in the first 241 games of his major-league career before this weekend, how has Ventura become a slugger?
Ventura admits to having no clue.
”It`s not like I`m waking up and drinking magic dust or anything,” he said.
Pasqua`s home run was his third in only 10 at-bats this season against a left-hander. Last year, lefties kept him in the ballpark all season.
”When he`s on a roll, you leave him in there,” said Torborg of letting Pasqua hit against Guthrie. ”Danny is a quiet, intense guy. But there`s a fire in there that doesn`t show in the way he carries himself. It`s a pride factor, not a contract thing.”
Since had had never faced Guthrie, Pasqua went into the Sox video room between innings and watched him up close before stepping up to the plate in the eighth. Then, with the score tied at 3, he decided to go for broke, defying the old baseball cliche that says you should ”just try to make contact.”
”I was trying for a home run,” Pasqua said. ”I was looking for a pitch in. It`s very rare when you try to do that, but we were definitely in that situation.”
Ventura`s homer and an RBI single by Warren Newson gave the Sox a 3-0 lead in the third, while starter Alex Fernandez went through the Twins` lineup without a problem, facing the minimum 15 batters and allowing only one hit through the first five innings.
But just as Ramon Garcia met his Waterloo in the seventh inning of the team`s 5-4 collapse Saturday night, Fernandez withered in the sixth. The Twins scored three runs, including consecutive RBI singles by Kirby Puckett and Kent Hrbek, the final one tying the game and knocking out Fernandez.
The Sox offense went cold after the three-run third. A leadoff single by Scott Fletcher in the fourth was their last hit until Pasqua`s shot into the right-field bleachers in the eighth.
Ken Patterson (3-0) notched the win with 1 2/3 hitless innings of relief and now has pitched 14 straight innings of scoreless ball since May 29. Bobby Thigpen earned his 18th save, and the Sox headed into the break with a feeling of extreme confidence.
”We`re the best at bouncing back,” Patterson said. ”It`s the makeup of the team, the personality of the players. It starts with Walt Hriniak and rubs off on everyone else.”
During the team`s run of 13 victories in 17 games, it has been the pitchers who have been carrying the hitters for the most part.
The Sox staff has combined for a 2.85 ERA during that span, while Sox batters have hit .241 but managed to average 4.4 runs a game.
Despite the low batting average, they`ve made most of the hits count, with 23 homers, including five apiece by Pasqua and Carlton Fisk and four apiece by Ventura and Thomas.
The result has been obvious.
