Buehrle, Konerko, and Walks Propel White Sox Over Rays

It was raining walks tonight at Tropicana Field. Well, not really, but Scott Kazmir made it rain walks like Fat Joe and Lil' Wayne made it rain money. Kazmir began the game with 10 straight balls and ended up walking 6 in only 4 innings of work. He also allowed 6 earned runs during that span, three of which came off of Paul Konerko's bat. Konerko was only a triple short of the cycle, as he went 3-5 with a run scored and 3 RBI. Mark Buerhle was also stellar as he was vintage Mark Buehrle tonight, tossing 6.2 innings of 3 run ball. He now improves to 2-0 on the season with tonight's 8-3 victory.

While Kazmir walked the world tonight, Buehrle was the opposite. Although Mark offered three free passes, he did now allow any of them to score. He also ran into several mini-jams, but came out of them relatively unharmed. He was pretty accurate for most of the game, throwing 66 of his 104 pitches for strikes. He was not as sharp as his last outing against Minnesota, where he retired the last 15 batters he faced, but he gave a better performance than he did on opening day. Buehrle is now 2-0 and has a shiny 3.00 ERA. Octavio Dotel worked out of his small jam in the 7th, as he got Pat Burrell to fly out to end the threat. Linebrink and Carrasco then worked scoreless innings as the Sox improve to 6-5 on the season.

Offensive contributions came from all over the place. Carlos Quentin belted out his 6th home run of the season. He also had two infield singles and knocked in two runs as well. Paul Konerko was only a triple short of the cycle and went 3-5 with 3 runs knocked in. Brent Lillibridge, Brian Anderson, and Corky Miller walked a combined 7 times and set the table for the middle of the order many times. Josh Fields struggled as he struck out twice and went 0-4. Alexei Ramirez went hitless as he is struggling mightly. Wilson Betemit avoided a 5 strikeout game with a double in the 9th to give him a 1-5 game. The offense was not completely sharp, but they were good enough to put up 8 runs with the aid of some bad defensive plays and a wild Scott Kazmir.

The Sox have salvaged at least a split in this 4 game series against the Rays. It really hurts to think what might have happened had Colon gotten some calls last night in that 6th inning. But what's done is done and the Sox now improve to 6-5 while the Rays fall to 5-7. The two teams will square off tomorrow as the Sox will send Gavin Floyd to the mound against hard throwing Matt Garza.

- Stan (White Sox writer)

Side Note: Go Bulls! What a win that was this afternoon.