Cardinals 1, White Sox 0: Wrong end of pitchers' duel

Jake Peavy was excellent tonight. But Lance Lynn was better. Peavy went 7 innings, giving up 4 hits, walking 2 and striking out 6. His only blemish was a solo home run by NL home run leader Carlos Beltran with 2 outs in the 3rd inning. Lynn, however, had no blemishes.

The Cardinals right-hander went 7.1 innings, giving up just 3 hits and walking 1 (intentionally), while striking out 12 White Sox hitters. The White Sox threatened in the 5th when Alex Rios led off the inning with a triple. But Lynn struck out A.J Pierzynski and Alexei Ramirez, meaning that Orlando Hudson came to bat with Peavy in the on-deck circle. Lynn intentionally walked Hudson and struck out Peavy. In the 8th, Marc Rzepczynski came on to pitch to Adam Dunn when he pinch-hit for Peavy with Hudson on first base. Last night, Dunn hit a towering home run off Rzepczynski. Tonight, Rzepczynski won the battle by inducing an inning ending double play to end another White Sox threat.

The White Sox threatened again in the 9th against Cardinals closer Jason Motte. Alejandro De Aza singled and Gordon Beckham sacrificed him to second base. Dayan Viciedo put runners at the corners with an infield single. But Paul Konerko hit into a game-ending double play.

• Peavy's performance was all the more impressive because he's ill with the flu.
• De Aza was the only White Sox to get two hits, going 2-4.
• Ramirez struck out in all three of his plate appearances.
• Dunn was a late scratch from the starting lineup with a slight right ankle sprain. Considering he pinch-hit, the "slight" should be stressed and it's possible that if the game were in an American League park he would have still started.
• The White Sox go for the series win tomorrow night. Gavin Floyd will start against Jake Westbrook.

Record: 34-28 | Box

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Programming note: I'm sure you all will be happy to hear that Jim - you remember, the guy you all come here to read - will be back tomorrow. Jim's ability to churn out quality content on a regular basis, multiple times a day, always impressed me when he was at Sox Machine and was the primary reason we wanted him here at South Side Sox. After running the site for the past two and a half weeks, my appreciation of the difficulty of maintaining that posting schedule has certainly grown. While I was dealing with all the back room stuff, I was only writing about 2/3rds of the content he does on a weekly basis - and I'm worn out.

Anyway, thanks for sticking around to read the 'B' team. Your regularly scheduled programming will now resume.