If the New York Yankees are looking for a pitcher to get them past the White Sox in a possible playoff matchup, Joe Mays may be the answer.
The obscure Minnesota right-hander can’t figure out how to succeed in the major leagues, but he certainly has the Sox under his thumb.
Mays limited the Sox to five hits through eight innings in the Twins’ 5-1 victory Thursday afternoon at the Metrodome, snapping the Sox’s five-game winning streak before 18,676 slightly interested observers.
Some things in life can’t be explained, such as medical miracles, Pauly Shore’s movie career and Joe Mays’ domination of the White Sox. Mays is 4-0 with a 2.18 earned-run average against the Sox; he’s 7-22 against everyone else in the major leagues. His last win before Thursday was on June 27 against . . . guess who?
“You mean `Cy’ Mays?” losing Sox pitcher Jim Parque said. “The guy is unbelievable against us.”
Frank Thomas said Mays’ success against the Sox is just “one of those things.”
“He does a very good job of teasing the zone,” Thomas said.
Then why can’t he tease other teams’ zones like he teases the Sox’s?
“I have no idea,” Thomas replied.
As it turns out, neither does Mays.
“They always seem to catch me when I have things figured out,” he said.
Parque lost for the first time since May 17, watching his career-high six-game winning streak end. Though he was effective most of the afternoon, allowing three runs on 10 hits through seven innings, Parque was victimized by a sleepy offense. He came in ranked first in American League run support with 8.7 runs per game, but couldn’t counter the dreaded “Mays effect.”
“The run support thing kind of evens out,” Sox manager Jerry Manuel said. “He got no support today, but over the course of the year he has had a lot.”
Mays has six different pitches and seemed to use them all. His slider was particularly effective, producing 10 outs on ground balls along with six strikeouts.
“He doesn’t throw a lot of fastballs and we are a fastball-hitting club,” right-fielder Jeff Abbott said. “It seems like he has 10 pitches. The catcher needs both hands to call him.”
Jacque Jones’ RBI single in the second handed Mays a 1-0 lead, and the Sox ran themselves out of an inning in the fourth. With runners on first and second and no outs, Chris Singleton lofted a fly to deep right, allowing Thomas to tag and advance to third. But Paul Konerko also tagged and tried to advance to second after the throw went to third and was caught in a rundown for a rally-killing double play.
Manuel constantly stresses aggressiveness on the basepaths, but he’s not talking about Konerko.
“He knew what he did was wrong,” Manuel said. “Paul is not one of our fleetest guys.”
Konerko conceded he shouldn’t have gone with Carlos Lee in the on-deck circle.
“I have to give Carlos a chance with one out and a guy on third,” Konerko said. “It was stupid.”
Jose Valentin’s throwing error in the fourth led to the second Twins’ run, which came on Chad Allen’s RBI single. Parque later served up a 335-foot homer to right to Cristian Guzman, and Sean Lowe gave up a two-run single to Allen in the eighth.
In the end, it was Mays’ day . . . again.
“That happens in any game or industry,” Manuel said. “I guess when he sees our uniform, he has his best stuff.”
