It looked like the visiting South Siders were going to pull out a win in yet another low-scoring affair in Oakland yesterday. Closer Bobby Jenks took the mound in the bottom of the ninth with the Sox up 1-0 and the A’s offense AWOL. The fans streaming out of the half-filled McAfee Coliseum clearly expected Jenks to quickly retire the side and hit the closest Jack in the Box for a few dozen cheeseburgers.
Alas, it was not to be.
After respective Sox and A’s starters Jon Garland and Chad Gaudin battled through the first half of the game without surrendering a run, Chicago’s offense got a little smallball going in the fifth inning when Juan Uribe drove in Alex Cintron on a single.
The score remained at 1-0 until the bottom of the final inning, with two outs and two guys on base for the A’s. However, Todd Walker–batting for shortstop Bobby Crosby–got a base hit to score Milton Bradley. Then, after walking Travis Buck, Jenks gave up a single (which might have been a home run in a smaller park) to Mark Ellis that brought in Marco Scutaro and gave Oakland a victory in an uncharacteristic game for both teams.
Gaudin summed it all up nicely with a Yogi Berra-esque quip after the game.
“That’s the story of our team. We couldn’t catch any breaks and tonight we got some.”
Number of the Night: 8
Total runs scored by both teams in the first two games of this series.
