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The White Sox put up one of their finest offensive outputs of the season with Paul Konerko on the bench with a swollen eye. The man who replaced him in the cleanup spot, Dayan Viciedo, accounted for the first three runs of the ballgame. In the first, he smoked a single to center to knock in Alejandro De Aza. In the third, Viciedo launched a high fly ball into the basket for a two run homer. A.J. Pierzynski followed with a home run of his own to give the Sox a 4-0 lead off of Cubs starter Ryan Dempster.
John Danks made those four runs hold up as he retired the first 13 batters he faced before allowing a double to Alfonso Soriano in the 5th. He got in a little bit of trouble in the 6th, but worked his way out of it courtesy of a 5-4-3 Starlin Castro double play.
With a shutout in tact, Danks was allowed to hit in the 7th inning and came back out to pitch the bottom of the 7th. He struck out Bryan LaHair before being lifted in favor of Nate Jones despite throwing only 83 pitches. Jones allowed a hit to Soriano but then got Jeff Baker to hit into a double play to end the inning.
The Sox batted around in the 8th inning. Adam Dunn launched his 13th homer of the season deep into the right center field bleachers. After a Viciedo groundout, Pierzynski doubled to left, Alex Rios was intentionally walked and Alexei Ramirez singled home Pierzynski to make it a 6-0 game. Eduardo Escobar hit a grounder to third that Joe Mather missed to load the bases. After pinch hitter Brent Lillibridge struck out, De Aza walked on four pitches to bring home the 7th run.
The Cubs made some noise in the 9th inning as Soriano and Mather each hit two run homers off of Zach Stewart with two outs in the 9th, but a Koyie Hill groundout ended the game and gave the Sox the series victory.
* De Aza was 1-2 in stolen base attempts
* After throwing the first three balls to De Aza in the 8th inning, pitcher Blake Parker left with an injury. Michael Bowden came in and promptly threw ball four to walk in the run. The walk is charged to Parker.
* Adam Dunn was 1-1 with 4 walks.
* Following yesterday's drama, nobody was hit by a pitch today.
* The Sox go for the sweep tomorrow as Jake Peavy faces off against Paul Maholm
WP: Danks
LP: Dempster
HR: Viciedo (7), Pierzynski (6), Dunn (13), Soriano (3), Mather (3)
Record: 20-21 | Box