The Buehrle Bile File: Making History: Game 120 Thoughts

Sox really win a nailbiter: 5-4!

Game Notes then The Bile File ---

• What do Mark Buehrle, Odalis Perez, David DeJesus, Pablo Ozuna, Emil Brown and Jermaine Dye all share in common? That combination of players earns the distinction of an MLB first: 1st and 2nd inning lead-off homeruns by both teams. Never ever has that happened before. And I regurgitated dim sum twice because of it.
  
• The double play is truly a pitcher's best friend. The White Sox turned 5 inning-ending DP's today including a bases-loaded, game-ending 5-3 off the bat of Sox killer Mike Sweeney. Think about this for a second. Out of 9 innings, 5 DPs, count 'em -- 5!, ended innings. That's a lot of baserunners and a lot of clutch pitching.
• Ozzie said it best in his post game interview, "Grudz must be mad at me for not taking him to the All-Star game." His average against the Sox this year: .390, in this series: 8-17. All-Star indeed.
  
• Bad Ozzie Move of the Game: Not pitching the lefty Thorton to Teahan in the 8th who hit a pressure-inducing hr against Macdougal. I doubt Mike Mac will be available tomorrow against the Twins.
• Good Ozzie Move of the Game: Pinch running Pods for Thome after a 2 out walk in the 8th. He scored on a hit-n-run by the next batter, Paulie Konerko.
• Play of the Game: This is without debate. With one out and men on 1st and 2nd, BA stops DeJesus's 9th inning rbi 2B from reaching the left-centerfield wall forcing Berroa -- the tying run! -- to stop at third. I defy anyone to tell me someone in a Sox uniform could have gotten to that ball as quickly as BA did. It flat out saved the game and it wasn't even a putout or an assist. These things just don't show up in the boxscore. I almost wanna give BA the PotG for that play alone.
  
• Big Ups to JD, Pablo and Mark Buerhle (That was pleasant and painful to type all at the same time.)
• Before the spine-bubbles in the 9th, I was kinda leaning toward giving Jenks the PotG award cuz he's gone somewhat overlooked by us here at ChiSox Blog (only 1 PotG), but after making us sweat, Paulie gets the nod instead as my White Sox Player of the Game with some very clutch hitting today, 2-4, 2 rbi.

Paul Konerko (9)




Sox Record: 72-48! WC lead is 2.0 on the Twinkies, and 6.5 behind Detroit in the Division.
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The Buehrle Bile File says...

Mark must have gotten wind of our Bile File plans. He must have wanted to stay away from the 10,000 marbles Jeeves was bringing back from England with him...

So guess what?

Mark Buehrle is now our best friend, or didn't you know? What a great guy and an even greater pitcher! He's always so efficient in his game pace, pitch selection and situational execution. He's now on pace to be -- hold your breath -- a .500 pitcher on the season! And -- wait for it -- he's an All-Star too! And his ERA is now -- gasp -- a paltry 4.80! While we're at it, he's on a one game winning streak -- his first in 9 straight starts!

In a voice only Hawk Harrelson would love, his troubles are O-V-E-R, Over!

Well, he did give up 2 more homeruns, but they were both of the lead-off variety -- so he had that going for him. He did give up 6 hits and 3 walks, but negated them with a pick off and 3 double plays -- so he had that going for him too. And he had a manager who again recognized when Mark was done for the day -- that was probably the best thing he had going for him!

He can also say he was better than the Count was yesterday. Braggin' rights over the Royals; now there's a badge of honor. We really shouldn't tease the Royals like that. Even the Tiggers only scored 3 runs on Mark last time out.

Yes, the homers were bile-tastic especially when one of them IS ON THE FIRST PITCH OF THE GAME!!! And all the baserunners really sucked, but Buehrle was less bile-tastic than normal. And we tip our caps to him for stopping the bleeding. This was excrutiating and fun at the same time. It's all good for now!

But we still have our eyes on you, Mark!

Biler Out!