Royals 9, White Sox 4: Why do we even play these guys?

When Dewayne Wise led off the game with a double into center, I thought "oh baby this is the day we're going to finally bomb Bruce Chen". I was wrong. Chen did what Chen does against us for the first five innings. After stranding Wise at third base, Bruce proceeded to knock down 11 straight White Sox hitters.

Unfortunately, Jake Peavy couldn't do the same against the Royals. Alcides Escobar hit the first of his four infield singles in the bottom of the first and quickly scored on a double by Alex Gordon to make it 1-0 KC. With first base open, Peavy drilled Billy Butler with a fastball. He then retired Mike Moustakas and Jeff Francoeur to get out of the inning. A lesson should have been learned there. More on that later.

In the bottom of the third, I wanted to break my television. Lorenzo Cain led off with a pop-up right in front of the plate that Tyler Flowers booted. After an Escobar double play, Alex Gordon hit a duck snort down the left field line. Dayan Viciedo charged and fired and seemingly gunned down Gordon at second... until the umpire realized Gordon Beckham dropped the ball for the 2nd error of the inning. This time with Butler up and first base open, Peavy pitched to him and the slugger singled to right and Gordon slid in safely beating the throw from Alex Rios. Mike Moustakas then dropped a single to right that Rios got handcuffed on. The ball skipped by Alex allowing Moustakas to get all the way to third for the third White sox error of the inning. Mercifully, Francoeur's grounder up the middle hit Peavy and deflected to Ramirez for the third out.

The Sox had another chance in the fifth inning against Chen. Viciedo and Ramirez led off with singles, but Flowers chopped into a force out for the first out. Beckham hit a shallow fly ball that Viciedo couldn't score on for the second out and Wise chopped to 2nd to end the inning.

In the bottom of the fifth, Escobar had an infield hit and stole second. With two outs and Butler up, Ventura opted to pitch to him and Billy singled to right again. This time it was Escobar sliding in before the tag was applied to make it 4-0 Royals.

In the 6th, the Sox finally got to their nemesis. Adam Dunn doubled to center and Paul Konerko hit his second homer in as many nights to cut the lead in half.

As per usual against Kansas City, though, Jake Peavy gave one of those runs back right away as Eric Hosmer led off with a homer. After a Brayan Pena single and a Johnny Giavotella fly out, Nate Jones was called upon. Lorenzo Cain and Alcides Escobar singled to load the bases. Ventura called on Donnie Veal who struck out Alex Gordon for the second out. Ventura then called on Philip Humber, who finally got Butler to ground to short to end the threat with the Sox trailing 5-2.

The Sox made it a game in the 8th when Kevin Youkilis singled, his 1,000th hit in the majors, and Dunn homered for the 400th time in his career to make it a 5-4 game off of Tim Collins. Ned Yost then called on Aaron Crow who sat down Konerko and Rios to end the inning.

In the bottom of the 8th, Brett Myers started out strong as he retired the first two hitters. Then Escobar's fourth infield single was followed by a hit by Alex Gordon to put runners on the corners for Butler. With a 2-0 count, Myers threw one down the middle and Butler singled to make it 6-4. With Matt Thornton waiting for the call, Ventura allowed Myers to face Moustakas who deposited one into the stands in right to put the game out of reach at 9-4.

* Hawk Harrelson didn't agree with the calls to pitch to Butler and made his feelings known. After the second Butler RBI single, he said "fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me". After the third he stated that Ventura was being hard headed.

* Chen beat us again. AHHHHHHHH!

* Dunn and Konerko are the first set of teammates to hit their 400th homers in the same season.

* The Sox made four errors. Flowers, Beckham, Rios and Youkilis accounted for them.

* Viciedo's 5th inning single gave him a 9 game hitting streak.

* The best part of the game was that a fan dove into the fountain to retrieve Dunn's 400th homer. He was escorted out by security. Not that he missed anything good in the bottom of the 8th anyway.

* Alejandro De Aza sat with a sore back.

* Somehow I didn't break a remote or my phone in this game. I deserve credit for that.

* Fortunately, Chris Davis' three run homer against the Tigers was enough as the Orioles won in Detroit 3-2, which keeps our lead at 1.5 games.

* Tomorrow afternoon the Sox try to salvage one as Jose Quintana faces Jeremy Guthrie.

Record: 65-54 | Box