...of Florida
The White Sox carried their West Coast woes with them to the port side of Florida, dropping 2 of 3 to the last place Devil Rays. It's something that, as White Sox fans, we've grown accustomed to. They're just 18-17 lifetime in the empty carton, despite Tampa being a .400 team over that time.
I can't figure out why they've had such trouble there, but I can tell you why they faltered tonight.
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Javier Vazquez did not have a good fastball tonight -- While it did have good velocity, it didn't have the movement we've been used to seeing from him. The first two innings, he had trouble throwing strikes with it at all, but in the middle innings, he was able to settle down and find the corners with it.
Javy's control started to wane late in the 7th inning, but Ozzie stuck with him, even after he surrendered a 2-out, 2-run HR to Damon Hollins on a 2-0 count. He then fell behind the next 3 batters as Tampa tacked on the eventual winning run.
Javy's starting to look a lot like pre-05 Jon Garland. And because of that, Ozzie needs to be much quicker with the hook.
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Brian Anderson is afraid to strike out -- I suppose that's understandable given his struggles at the plate and his 3 strikeout performance against Scott Kazmir last time out. But he needs to find a happy medium between being passive and the over-aggressiveness we witnessed tonight. He saw only 3 pitches during his three plate appearances, and made solid contact only once.
Maybe even more troubling -- I'm not quite sure. I'll have to check the video once it's up on MLB.tv -- was that he appeared to pull up and let Jermaine Dye try to field what would end up as Carl Crawford's RBI triple. It certainly landed in an area where I would have expected Anderson to make the play. Maybe they were playing Crawford the other way, and I didn't notice at first.
- Joe Crede was not clutch -- He can't be clutch every night, but we really needed him tonight because Juan Uribe is joining Anderson in the 'Anytime You Wanna Start Hitting Is Fine With Me' Club.
- We missed the memo -- Tyler Walker is not good. 2.2 IP, 1H, 0BB, and 1K in two close games is a pretty terrible performance against a sorry closer.