Waiting to take some cuts during batting practice before Friday’s game, Frank Thomas stared at the old locomotive engine that runs on a track about 60 feet above the left-center-field wall of Enron Field.
“You want to see me hit that train, don’t you?” Thomas said to no one in particular.
Before waiting for a response, Thomas stepped into the cage, got hold of a semi-fastball and slammed it off the engine.
An hour or so later, Thomas belted a three-run line-drive home run over the left-field scoreboard to kick-start the White Sox to a 7-4 victory over Houston.
It was just another day at Enron Field, whose short distances down the foul lines makes it the “Mini-Me” of major-league parks.
The Sox nearly blew a 6-0 lead, but hung on to open their interleague schedule and increase their Central Division lead over Cleveland to 2 games.
Jim Parque improved to 5-2 despite being lifted in the sixth with a 6-1 lead. Bill Simas threw two scoreless innings, and Keith Foulke registered his 11th save.
The first time into Enron, the natural inclination for many hitters is to try to hit one out. Sox manager Jerry Manuel was glued to the batting cage before the game, trying to convince Jose Valentin not to try to pull the ball over the 326-foot fence in right.
“We have to get our hitters back on track,” Manuel said. “We don’t need home runs–we need doubles. We haven’t swung the bats well in quite a while.”
But as difficult as it is for visiting players to contain themselves at the plate, Houston manager Larry Dierker insisted it’s even harder for Astros’ hitters to show some self-discipline.
“I think it’s worse for our hitters,” Dierker said. “The other teams come through for only three days, but our guys are going to try to do it all year long… unless they get over it.”
How can anyone get over a 315-foot left-field fence?
“You can’t think about that [short fence],” Simas said. “If you have that in the back of your mind, you’ll probably make a mistake.”
The ballpark has taken a psychological toll on the beleaguered Houston staff, which ranks 14th of 16 National League teams with a 5.60 earned-run average. Dierker said his staff was simply not built for this ballpark.
“You know, you can’t hit a home run on a ground ball,” Dierker said. “We have to change our pitching staff. We’re more of a fly ball-strikeout pitching staff. That worked well for us in the Astrodome. It doesn’t work so well here.”
The Sox took a 2-0 lead off Shane Reynolds (5-2) in the second when shortstop Julio Lugo let a chopper by Ray Durham glance off his glove with two outs, enabling two runners to score. Greg Norton hustled home from second when Lugo failed to retrieve the deflected ball immediately.
After Valentin singled, Thomas lined his 11th home run of the season to make it 5-0. Chris Singleton turned a single into a double in the third with another hustle play, coming around to score on Norton’s sacrifice fly.
“Hopefully, that identifies White Sox baseball,” Manuel said.
Houston scored four runs in the sixth to make things interesting, but Simas and Foulke shut it down the final 31/3 innings, making Thomas’ clout stand up.
