Despite Detroit and Minnesota trying to ease their despair, the team remains in disrepair after their 3-1 loss to Texas, their seventh in the eight games since seven Sox went to the All-Star Game.
If there was any good news coming from sold out U.S. Cellular Field on Saturday, it was that the Sox stayed 6 1/2 games behind the Tigers in the American League Central and three ahead of the Twins, who come to town Monday for a three-game series.
Despite the outcome, manager Ozzie Guillen put on another happy face afterward.
“I’m not going to say I’m happy about it, but we were a couple of hits away from winning,” he said. “We have to continue to fight. This is a battle. The good thing about baseball is you have a chance every day to recover.”
The Sox are in need of recovery right now, especially after Bobby Jenks walked three batters and allowed the deciding two runs to score in the ninth after starter Freddy Garcia pitched seven strong innings.
With two outs and a runner at second base in the ninth, Jenks walked Gary Matthews Jr. intentionally. Then he walked Ian Kinsler unintentionally to load the bases for All-Star Game hero Michael Young, who stroked a two-run single into right field.
“I think everybody is doing all right,” Jenks said of the team mood. “Nobody’s head is down. We’re just going through a little bad stretch right now.”
The Sox have been plagued with inconsistency from pitching to the lineup.
In fact, in the last four games, the Nos. 1-4 hitters are a combined 6-for-59 (.102) with two RBIs, both of them homers.
“I cannot put a finger on anything in the ballclub,” Guillen said. “Everybody in general is struggling right now.”
At least Garcia was back to the form that saw him win seven straight decisions earlier in the season. He left in a 1-1 tie after seven innings, giving up four scattered hits.
“As long as he keeps throwing the ball like that, we will win a lot of games,” Guillen said.
It was quite a departure from Garcia’s previous three starts in which he was charged with 17 runs in 18 innings. But that inconsistency has been the problem of most White Sox starters, especially Garcia and Mark Buehrle, who has lost four straight games.
“Except maybe for [Jose] Contreras, the pitching staff has struggled,” Guillen said. “They know about it. We want them more consistent. We built this ballclub on pitching and when they’re awful, people say, `Oh, my God.’
“I don’t blame people who worry about it, but we’re not going be perfect every day. They’re not consistent and we know that. [Everybody] knows it.”
Garcia allowed only one hit through the four innings, then gave up a run in the fifth.The Sox got that run back in the sixth inning when Paul Konerko led off with a 382-foot homer that broke an 0-for-11 streak. But that was all the offense and now the Sox are left in deep trouble.
“Anybody who was part of this team [last year] went through it before and that came out pretty good,” Guillen said.
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dvandyck@tribune.com
