by Sean Kane
That’s baseball for ya’. I mean you really can’t say more about this outrageously dramatic relationship we have. You pray that you don’t get let down but then again you know the game.
The White Sox-Twins was a classic case of baseball’s tough love. The White Sox had gotten this far but the series in the Metrodome was staring us down since April. We saw how it could unfold, with the way we had been playing and the way they play at home. It could go either way. The White Sox are the momentum team, the super hot/cold team. We could destroy a pitcher and anyone in the order could put a ball in the stands but that’s a slugging percentage that usually happens at home. Our defense was solid but there are questions in a huge outfield and with our decision making. Our pitching staff can give you what you need, but they are bound to give up some.
Everyone got the memo: you can hit the Sox and if they don’t hit you, you’ll win
The Twins, however, are solid everywhere. Try to find the serious chink in their armor. They string together singles, their pitching might go cold but there is someone in the bullpen to stop the bleeding and the defense will always back you up with their wheels.
Unfortunately, what it boiled down to in this series was fundamentals. Solid baseball all around will beat hot and cold heroics.
The heartbreaker is that we believed our ball would beat theirs’ but there was something in the back of every fans’ mind that said, “Man, we could easily blow this.†Minnesota knew it, too. They knew we were fragile.
Everyone else in the league was waiting for the slide. Every media member wondered, how has this Twins’ team not blown up? And the Twins’ clubhouse sat waiting all the while to attack. Thinking, “We know how good we are. We just need to get our chance.†They got their chance. Demolished us in the first. Held on in the second. And came back in the third. They played great baseball in every situation they could. They had the power hitting; a homer and more triples than I have ever seen in one series. They had consistent hitting with hits from top to bottom, bunting in runs every game. The field made big plays, stopping triples late in game two, no serious errors, and tracking down everything on that fast turf. They took advantage of every ball they could make a play with.
We got our chances, too. In game 2 we got the clutch start from our ace, put runners in scoring position. Game 3 showed us fortune in the fourth and put Gavin Floyd in the lead. Those slippery chances slid away off a rock solid Twins’ team.
We didn’t “Show the passion†or “Share the swaggerâ€. The clubhouse was tight, the fans were skeptical, and since game one Hawk Harrelson had been saying, “Daggumit†every inning. We felt a slide coming but begged the Baseball Gods for a couple meatballs over the plate to take our order out of the slump. It happens. Look at the NL, tonight. Proof, walking off the field that Baseball prayers are answered. We knew that consistent baseball will usually win, though. We knew the Twins could sweep us.
That was the tricky part for White Sox fans. We felt our team could win. We had won big games, taking advantage of mistakes, hitting homers and getting good starts kept us in the driver’s seat. Constantly counting our lucky stars. On that, we hoped we could get the one ‘W’. One win, that’s all we needed up there. The real trouble was we really believed we could only get one.
Minnesota believed what they could do what they did. They just needed a reason to start playing like one of the best teams in the AL, for our sake I just wish they had let us down easy and done it in June.
