The changing nature of Jon Garland was enough Tuesday night to help the White Sox continue their recent mastery of Texas’ tough offense.
Garland avoided the big rally and the long ball–his two weaknesses–as the Sox pulled off a 5-2 victory at Ameriquest Field.
Garland (5-3) lasted only 5 1/3 innings but limited the Rangers to five hits as the Sox remained 1 1/2 games behind Detroit in the American League Central.
“This was a confidence-builder for me, regardless,” said Garland, who produced 10 groundball outs and ducked out of trouble with help from his bullpen.
The Sox have limited the Rangers to five runs in the first two games of this four-game series. More impressive, they have limited Michael Young, Mark Teixeira and Hank Blalock–the core of the Rangers’ lineup–to a combined 4-for-24.
Garland pitched to one batter over the minimum through the first five innings and pitched with a quick tempo that produced many outs early in the count. That provided great relief to his defense playing in 93-degree heat.
“It’s tough out here with hot nights, the ball carries, it’s a hitters’ ballpark and they have a good lineup,” said first baseman Paul Konerko, who hit a three-run homer in the sixth to snap a 1-1 tie. “You can’t say enough about the pitching.”
Garland failed to pitch at least six innings for the first time in seven starts, but he was pulled only because manager Ozzie Guillen wanted left-hander Neal Cotts to face Teixeira and Blalock with runners at second and third and the Sox protecting a three-run lead with one out in the sixth.
Cotts struck out Teixeira and induced Blalock to ground out. Brandon McCarthy and Bobby Jenks then combined for three scoreless innings.
“I can’t blame [Guillen] one bit for pulling me with the way things have been going,” said Garland, who entered Tuesday’s game with a 7.83 road ERA and 13 home runs allowed in his last six starts.
Garland had allowed three or more earned runs in an inning in five of his previous 12 starts.
“We stayed away from the big inning,” Guillen said. “Garland did his job.”
Guillen said he would have stuck with Garland if any hitter other than Teixeira had been coming to the plate.
The Sox scored three runs or more in an inning for the third consecutive game. Konerko’s homer followed consecutive singles by Tadahito Iguchi and Jim Thome off Rangers starter Kameron Loe (3-6).
“[Loe] has a good sinker, so I didn’t want to go up there taking pitches,” Konerko said after hitting the first pitch over the left-field wall. “I caught one that kind of flattened out.”
Konerko needs one home run to tie Harold Baines for second place on the Sox’s all-time home run list with 221.
“We know we’re built around pitching, so we hope [our starters] get on that roll like they did last year where they try to out-do each other every start,” Konerko said.
“That’s what it seems like it’s turning into, guys finding their groove. We start doing that, we can string some wins together, which is something we haven’t done this year. We’ve had to fight for our wins. We haven’t hit our groove yet.”
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mgonzales@tribune.com
