Something very interesting has happened since Monday’s trade of Jim Thome.
And it’s not that the White Sox have won four of their five games after Gavin Floyd’s 5-1 gem Saturday over the Red Sox.
It’s that Thome’s designated hitter spot has been passed around, and the most frequent occupant has been leadoff hitter Scott Podsednik.
A singles-hitting, stolen-base threat as the DH?
Podsednik stole as many bases Saturday (one) as Thome has had in the last eight seasons.
“Managers create that, people who can hit and not do anything else,” manager Ozzie Guillen said. “I would like to change that if I could: Put in a guy who could DH a couple of days, play in the outfield a little bit. That gives me more options.”
So, on Saturday at least, the White Sox DH led off the game with a single, stole second and scored the game’s first run on a Paul Konerko single.
The Sox tallied three runs in the first off Red Sox starter Tim Wakefield and then added home runs by Mark Kotsay in the sixth and Konerko in the eighth for their fourth straight victory, keeping them seven games behind the Tigers in the AL Central.
Podsednik was 1-for-4 Saturday, leaving him 1-for-8 in two games as the DH. Jermaine Dye and Carlos Quentin were a combined 1-for-7 in the other two games.
Despite the 2-for-15 effort, life without Thome as DH may not be as bad as first thought, though much of the recent credit needs to go to the starting pitchers.
“Jim Thome did a tremendous job as DH,” Guillen said. “He got big hits for us. But when you have a guy who can DH and play other positions, then people are going to get more rest.”
The absence of Thome’s big bat in the middle of the lineup hasn’t seemed to hurt, so far, with the Sox collecting 41 hits over the last three days as they transition from the power game.
But they couldn’t have won Saturday without Floyd (11-9), who took a perfect game into the sixth and struck out a career-high 11 in eight innings while winning for only the second time since Aug. 5.
His best of the season?
“Results-wise, yeah,” Floyd said. “But I’ve felt better.”
Floyd recorded eight strikeouts before allowing Nick Green’s two-out single in the sixth. The 33,239 fans at U.S. Cellular Field gave him a standing ovation.
“You’re aware of [the no-hitter], but in the sixth inning there’s still a lot of game to go,” Floyd said. “If it happens, it happens. If not, you put it behind you.”
Floyd allowed two more hits, one of them Jason Bay’s eighth-inning homer.
He also had to endure some razzing — and finally a friendly hug — from teammate Mark Buehrle, who has a no-hitter and a perfect game the last three seasons.
Floyd, who twice took no-hitters into the eighth inning last season, said Buehrle had joked about him “learning to how finish them.”
“He didn’t say anything, he just looked at me in the dugout,” Floyd said, “and I said, ‘Oh, Mr. Perfect, knows how to finish,’ just to give him a hard time.”
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dvandyck@tribune.com
