The White Sox won`t sweep.
A day after the Oakland Athletics ruined any hope the Sox could cut their differential in the American League West to a mere six games before the weekend, the question was pretty basic: What was the impact of that one loss? ”It just makes an already tough situation harder,” said manager Gene Lamont.
Devastating?
”No,” said Steve Sax. ”Nothing`s devastating. If it becomes devastating, then you`re obviously on shaky ground to start with.”
Well . . .
”Everything`s relative, you know?”
Relative to, say, the Seattle Mariners, the Sox are in terrific shape. But their 5-3 loss to Oakland Monday night was difficult on several levels.
There were costly misplays by Tim Raines in left and Frank Thomas at first. Sax failed to get a bunt down in a key eighth-inning situation. Later in the same inning, Thomas chased a high pitch on 2-0 and the bases loaded and hit into a rally-killing double-play.
Meanwhile, the A`s were losing Carney Lansford to a hamstring, Jose Canseco to back pain, playing Mike Bordick out of position and winning behind a starting pitcher, Ron Darling, who nearly was out of baseball after going 3-7 last year.
What is it about the Oakland A`s that makes them winners despite everything?
”They have good players,” said Robin Ventura.
But other teams have good players.
”They have good players that play good together,” said Ventura.
But all those injuries . . .
”They`ve got guys who come up and play good,” said Ventura.
Guys who know how to win?
”It takes more than that, though,” Ventura said. ”Minnesota knew how to win two, three years ago, but they didn`t.
”These guys are playing good together.”
”The White Sox have that kind of atmosphere at times, too,” said Greg Hibbard. ”We go through stretches where we find ways to win games.”
But only in stretches.
”Yeah,” Hibbard said, ”but that`s going to come. The more you play together, the more each guy sees, during the course of the year, how he`s going to react in certain situations and they start to play better with each other.”
The A`s are there. And Hibbard agrees with Ventura: There`s talent.
”They`ve got some pretty good starting pitchers,” said Hibbard.
”Pretty good closer. Pretty good home run hitters. A couple of guys hitting for average. Pretty good speed. I mean, they have a little bit of everything on that team.
”They`ve just got good talent in the organization. Guys that can step up and adapt real well to the big-league pitching and the big-league atmosphere and not have any setbacks.”
Sax, before Tuesday night`s Game 2 of the series, remained upbeat.
”We could just as well come back and win the next two and win four at our place,” said Sax. Oakland will be in Chicago for four games Sept. 21-24. They`ll probably be meaningful games. They may not be meaningful to the White Sox-but right now, they represent a potential four-game turnaround..
”So you can`t make it a devastating thing,” said Sax, ”because we still have time.”
It`s fleeting.
