Doing the unexpected paid off for the White Sox Tuesday night at Comiskey Park in their 6-4 victory over Toronto.
The Sox scored one run on Ron Karkovice’s squeeze bunt in the sixth, and liked the results so much they tried it again with Karkovice at bat in the eighth. Though he wound up fouling off the pitch in his second go-around, the move alone by new manager Terry Bevington drew applause from the small but noisy crowd, which apparently appreciated seeing something different.
“When `Bev’ was manager the first day, he said, `Go hard. We’re going to try to do all the little things,’ ” Karkovice said.
Only five days into the job, Bevington has already shown a propensity to make the risky call when he feels like it, and figures to take a few more risks as he becomes more comfortable with the surroundings.
“Sometimes you have to get things moving,” Bevington said. “We’ve got guys who can run and guys who can handle the bat.”
The win was the fourth in five games since Bevington took over for Gene Lamont last Friday, the hottest streak for the Sox this season. Just the other day, Bevington explained his feelings about going by the book.
“In general, I like to keep probability and gut feelings in perspective,” Bevington said. “Sometimes I’m going to go way against the grain, and other times I won’t. I’m not afraid to go against the grain and have it backfire and then everybody says: `Well, that was kind of stupid.’ “
Robin Ventura drove in three runs for the Sox while extending his hitting streak to 11 games, and Jason Bere (2-4) got the victory despite lasting only five innings. Roberto Hernandez notched his 10th save, striking out Candy Maldonado for the final out for the second straight night.
Bere left with a 4-3 lead after walking five batters in five innings, two of whom scored when the Jays batted around in the three-run second inning. Bere leads the team with 37 walks allowed in 47 innings, an average of 7.1 walks per 9 innings, and has failed to make it past the sixth inning in five of his eight starts.
“Jason is going to be a four-five-walk-guy-a-game,” Bevington said. “The difference between last year and this year is he was a streak walker last year.”
Ventura’s opposite field double off Jays right-hander Pat Hentgen in the first brought home the first two Sox runs before Warren Newson drilled an RBI single to make it a 3-0 game. Bere’s familiar control problems cropped up in the Jays second, when he walked John Olerud and Shawn Green to start the inning. Ed Sprague drove in one run off Bere, and Paul Molitor’s two-run single tied it at 3.
A two-out, RBI single by Ventura in the fifth put the Sox ahead again. They added another in the sixth when Newson hit a wind-blown triple over Joe Carter’s head in left and Karkovice executed a perfect safety-squeeze bunt to score Newson and put the Sox up 5-3.
Olerud pulled the Jays to within a run with an RBI single off Scott Radinsky in the seventh, but the Sox bullpen shut the door thereafter. Jose De Leon stranded a runner on third in the eighth when he struck out Paul Molitor, and the Sox scored an insurance run in the bottom of the inning to take a 6-4 lead into the ninth.
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Next: Toronto, Wednesday. 7:05 p.m., SportsChannel
