For the second straight night, Alex Cintron drove in the winning run for the White Sox off a Detroit reliever. This time it was only a single from the right side of the plate off of Jamie Walker. I think the Sox line-up construction, going L-S-L-R-L from #8 back around to #3, may have caused Jim Leyland to overlook the fact that Cintron is actually a major league hitter against lefties.
The Sox played a cleaner game tonight than they did on Tuesday, but they still made their fair share of mistakes. The most notable of which came when Joe Crede appeared to have cost Jose Contreras a shot at the win when he made two errors on one play with 2 outs in the 7th. Magglio Orndonez hit a two-hopper to third that Crede booted, causing it to roll away from him. He took about four steps in before he could pick up the ball again, then inexplicably fired the ball offline to first base, allowing the tying run to score and the go ahead run to advance just 90 feet from home. Thankfully, Crede didn't carry that mistake over to the next play, as Marcus Thames lined sharply right at Crede for the final out of the inning.
Ozzie called on career minor leaguer Agustin Montero in the 8th with a 1-run lead, taking at least a few minutes off my life. When he was first called up, I compared him to Luis Vizcaino, and after further viewing that comparison seems justified. He had two things working for him on Wednesday night; he was throwing strikes, and he got to face the bottom of the Tigers order. I still don't want to see him in many 1-run games, but it seems that Ozzie did put him in a position to have success. Neal Cotts easily cleaned up the small mess he left on the bases, no thanks to the small strike zone Ron Kulpa gave him.
I did derive a small amount of pleasure watching Maggs ground into a double play to end the game with the tying run on base. I never would have expected Bobby Jenks to be so dependable in the closers role, even after his post-season success last season. He's really been the only thing keeping the bullpen from being a complete disaster.
Not that it matters all that much, but I just heard a report that Jeff Nelson, who went on the DL last week, will need surgery to fix whatever was wrong with his elbow. The surgery will effectively end Nelson's career, and remove all doubt about him returning to the Sox this season. I suppose it was worth a shot though.