Rarely does a crowd burst into applause after a foul ball, but the unexpected became the norm for the White Sox Tuesday night in Comiskey Park.
After the Sox scored a run on Ron Karkovice’s perfectly executed suicide squeeze bunt in the sixth inning of a 6-4 victory over Toronto, new manager Terry Bevington liked the results so much he tried it again with Karkovice at bat in the eighth.
Though Karkovice wound up fouling off the pitch in his second go-round, Bevington’s move drew much applause from the small but noisy crowd of 18,428.
“When `Bev’ was manager the first day, he said, `Go hard. We’re going to try to do all the little things,’ ” Karkovice said.
So far, so good. Five days into the job, Bevington has already shown a propensity to make the risky call when he feels like it.
“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, 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,” he 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.’ “
New cleanup hitter 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.
A two-run, opposite-field double by Ventura and a run-scoring single by Warren Newson gave the Sox a 3-0 lead after one, but Bere experienced control problems in the second. He walked the first two hitters, both of whom would come around to score, and the Jays tied it 3-3 on Paul Molitor’s two-run single.
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 and came home on Karkovice’s suicide squeeze.
Bere left with a one-run 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 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.
“I think I’m thinking a little too much,” Bere said. “The games I don’t have control problems, I don’t think about throwing strikes. I just go out there and throw them.”
Bere only turned 24 a few weeks ago, but Bevington doesn’t want to use age as an excuse.
“It doesn’t matter what your age is–if you’re 21 or 41,” he said. “If you can play, you can play. We have guys who have been around. People talk about a young team, and it seems like the young team never hits middle age. Pretty soon they’re young, and now all of a sudden they’re old. So what we have is a good-aged team. A wide variety. Jason will be back.”
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Next: Toronto, Wednesday. 7:05 p.m., SportsChannel
