White Sox 4, Twins 1

Brad Radke (12-8, 4.35 ERA) pitched five great innings of baseball with 6 strikeouts, no walks and 3 runs - only 1 earned - a home run by right-fielder Rob Mackowiak on Saturday evening. Brad has been pitching with a torn labrum muscle in his throwing arm, which is pretty damned impressive. I'd be calling into work and crying like a baby, not pitching 5 innings of Major League baseball. When asked about playing with his shoulder pain, Brad responded by saying, "Hey - if your arm falls off, your arm falls off. At least you can go down trying." He's so hardcore.

There were four errors in the game, two on each side of the ball. So it all evens out, I guess...except when Scott Podsednik scored on Jason Bartlett's throwing error in the first. That wasn't cool. But then Bartlett made a sweet play a couple innings later to get the speedy Juan Uribe at first for the second out, which was a good attempt at a defensive make-up.

The Sox scored a run in the 2nd off a Podsednik single to right, and then Mackowiak's homer came in the 4th. Willie Eyre (6.11 ERA) came in to pitch the 6th, 7th and 8th innings, striking out one batter and giving up 2 hits: one being a single by A.J. Pierzynski. While he was held up between 1st and 2nd, Podsednik ran home and scored, extending the White Sox lead to 3 runs. A.J. was called safe at 1st, pissing a ton of fans off, including me. Pierzynski then rubbed his nose a little, which I'm assuming refers to Mike Redmond's "smell those RBIs" thing he does. After that blatent disregard for Redmond's unique way of getting the team fired up, the fans went nuts and started throwing cups on the field. And guess what A.J., no RBI for you, anyway. The runner went home on the throw, not your stupid base hit. P.S. You'll forever be known as the crappy end of the Giants/Twins trade.

Jon Garland (14-4, 4.73 ERA) shut down the Twins through the first 7.2 innings, allowing 1 run on 6 hits. Maybe the best game he's thrown against the Twins in a while. With two outs and runners on 1st and 2nd, Paul Schrieber (the third base ump) was nailed by a Bartlett line drive, robbing the Twins of an extra base hit also. Get outa the way Blue! The Twins have had a hard enough time getting a man on third without your help! So, that was total crap. After all that nonsense, Matt Thornton came in to retire Luis Castillo and end the inning. It's the little things.

Matt Guerrier (3.02 ERA) pitched a scoreless 9th, giving up 1 hit, and everyone put on their rally caps, but the Twins couldn't produce any runs in the bottom of the inning. It was a tough loss, and the Twins just couldn't get a break. This puts them right back to where they started on Friday, at 2 games behind the Sox for the Wild Card lead. Minnesota will look to take the series Sunday afternoon in the rubber match.

VS.

Johan Santana (14-5, 3.10 ERA) will defend the dome tomorrow, looking for his 15th win of the season against Javier Vazquez (11-7, 5.13 ERA) and the White Sox in the series finale.