Big sixth inning carries White Sox

CHICAGO -- For a supposed "small ball" team, the White Sox certainly didn't show the look of one on Wednesday night, tallying 10 runs in the sixth inning to help snap a two-game slide.
Those 10 runs would be the key to prohibiting a series sweep by Arizona, as the White Sox would take a 12-6 come-from-behind victory over the Arizona Diamondbacks in front of 24,499 at U.S. Cellular Field.

Though not many people would have predicted such a high-scoring inning for the Sox, no one seemed to be more surprised by the offensive output than manager Ozzie Guillen.

Seeing his team put together the most runs the club has managed to string together in an inning since April 18, 2000, when the White Sox scored 11 in the fourth inning at Seattle, was something that Guillen didn't expect nor had witnessed before.

"I don't remember one like that," Guillen said. "Not to take any credit away from my hitting coach or my hitters, but I didn't think we would score that many runs in one inning with the team we have."

Built around speed and doing the little things to help score runs, the White Sox (43-22) looked a little out of place blasting three home runs and stringing together an offensive explosion that encompassed 13 batters.

It seemed like every little thing that could go right for the Sox in the sixth did.

Including a little help from Arizona shortstop Royce Clayton. Clayton made miscues on back-to-back plays after the Sox had already scored two runs off a Frank Thomas solo home run to center and a Jermaine Dye RBI single to make it cut the White Sox deficit to 6-4.

A.J. Pierzynski hit a sharp grounder up the middle to Clayton and though Clayton was able to make the grab, his throw to second sailed down right-field line.

That miscue allowed Aaron Rowand to score and bring the Sox within one.

Still with only one out in the game, Joe Crede followed with another grounder to Clayton that he fielded easily. Clayton had the option of throwing to home to get Dye or to first but couldn't pull the trigger to make a play, with the tying run crossing the plate and Crede reaching first safely.

"That's not a play that you see happen very often with any shortstop, especially Royce," Paul Konerko said of Clayton's freeze. "He's the best shortstop I've ever played with, no one is close to him.

"The wetness with the ball had something to do with it. I know he wanted to come up firing right away, he's not going to say that, but he didn't have a good grip on it."

It was after the two Clayton mistakes that the Sox did the most of the scoring damage. Juan Uribe hit a three-run bomb to left-center to put Chicago up, 9-6.

Two more Sox would get on base though before Konerko hit his 17th home run of the year, another three-run blast, to put the game away.

Despite the amount of runs that scored following Clayton's miscues, Konerko said that he didn't feel that those were what ultimately cost Arizona the game.

"The way things were going that inning, the way they were throwing it, that wasn't going to be the difference in the game," Konerko said. "I think we were going to score some runs with how well we were swinging it."

Those big swings were much needed after Jon Garland had a start that he would just as soon forget.

Garland started off well, but with the game tied at 1 heading into the fifth, he gave up five runs to allow Arizona to take a 6-1 lead. Garland (11-2) worked six innings, giving up six runs off six hits, walking three and striking out four.

The victory was Garland's 11th and though he is the first American League pitcher to reach that number, he felt like luck played a bit in that happening.

"I probably shouldn't have been [the AL's first 11-game winner]," Garland said. "It works out to my advantage. The guys came up big with the bats and were hitting the ball well."

The game was a huge momentum swing for the team. Not only did it prevent a series sweep by Arizona, something that has not happened to Chicago this season, but it also aided Chicago in the American League Central standings.

With a Minnesota loss to the Giants on Wednesday night, the Sox were able to pick up a game and put them five games ahead of the Twins in the division race.

The showing of such a strong offense after two poorly played games to start the series against Arizona was a welcome sight for Guillen, but he does not plan to change the way that the team operates.

"We didn't play well the last couple days, all of a sudden down by six runs, five runs to have this comeback, you should feel proud of your players," Guillen said.

"It would be easy to say, 'Now, let's hit 20 out of the park every night.' But we have to continue to play the way we've played all year."

Source: http://chicago.whitesox.mlb.com/