Unlike Pujols, Sox's Podsednik is unlikely hero

10/23/2005
CHICAGO — It was one thing for the Cardinals' Albert Pujols to hit a game-winning home run off Brad Lidge last week in the National League Championship Series. It is quite another for Chicago White Sox left fielder Scott Podsednik to do it.Podsednik had no homers in 507 regular-season at-bats (he had one in the division series), but he, like Pujols, solved Houston fireballer Lidge to win a postseason game. Podsednik's 408-foot blast with one out in the ninth was the 14th game-ending home run in World Series history, giving the White Sox a 7-6 win and a 2-0 lead in games in the Series. It also served notice that Lidge, who hadn't pitched since Pujols' blast last Monday night, might not have shaken that moment off.Before Podsednik's heroics, St. Charles native Mark Buehrle was one out from some history. He was that close to becoming the first St. Louis-area pitcher to win a World Series game since Ritenour High star Jerry Reuss beat the New York Yankees for the Los Angeles Dodgers in Game 5 in 1981. Instead, Sunday night's victory went to another St. Louis-area native, Neal Cotts, a White Sox reliever from Lebanon.If rookie closer Bobby Jenks hadn't blown a two-run lead on pinch hitter Jose Vizcaino's two-out single in the ninth, Buehrle would have become just the second pitcher and first American Leaguer to be the winning pitcher in an All-Star Game, a division series game, a league championship series game and the World Series in the same year. Atlanta's John Smoltz was the only pitcher to accomplish that, in 1996.

Buehrle, who like many of the pitchers used Sunday night, didn't prosper on a cold (45 degrees), rainy night and allowed four runs in seven innings. But the White Sox turned a 4-2 deficit into a 6-4 lead in their seventh on Paul Konerko's grand slam on the first pitch he saw from reliever Chad Qualls.The previous pitch, a full-count offering thrown by reliever Dan Wheeler, was open to some question. Home-plate umpire Jeff Nelson, who did not ask for help on the play, said it hit Jermaine Dye in the right arm, thus loading the bases. The Astros, who may have been closer to the ultimate truth, thought it hit Dye's bat for a foul ball - an opinion that television replays seemed to endorse."I thought the ball hit the bat," said Houston manager Phil Garner. "I don't know what would have happened after that, but I thought the ball hit the bat."Buehrle, a Francis Howell North and Jefferson College product who was a 38th-round pick by the White Sox in 1998, was pitching from the relative comfort zone of U.S. Cellular Field. Counting postseason games, he is a .667 pitcher at 48-24 for his career there. But he has a little reverse Mark Mulder in him, too. Since the start of last season, Buehrle is 14-2 by day and 18-16 at night.Buehrle, who gave up 20 homers in the regular season, yielded a first-pitch solo home run by Morgan Ensberg in the second inning. Ensberg apparently was more comfortable hitting with nobody on after stranding runners in scoring position three times in Game 1.Third baseman Ensberg failed to handle Aaron Rowand's smash to his left with one out in the White Sox second. Three more mistakes followed - two by the Astros - and the White Sox had a 2-1 lead.First, Rowand decided to tag up at first on A.J. Pierzynski's drive to deep left, where Chris Burke, normally an infielder, jumped but was nowhere near the ball, which caromed 50 feet away from him back to the infield. Pierzynski, fortunately for the White Sox, was running with his head up and did not pass Rowand, who belatedly made it to second.But the White Sox can do no wrong when they are wrong. Joe Crede blooped a single to right to score Rowand and send Pierzynski to third.Juan Uribe flied to short right, where second baseman Craig Biggio, no doubt hearing the footsteps of right fielder Jason Lane, went back on the ball with some apprehension. Biggio reached up for the ball - and dropped it. Lane, getting to the loose ball quickly, forced Crede at second, but Pierzynski scored."We had three balls that should have been caught," said Garner. "Instead, they had two runs on the board."Pitching in Game 2 Sunday night and then a potential Game 6 in Chicago next Saturday, Buehrle wouldn't have pitched in his hometown anyway in what would have been his ideal World Series - White Sox vs. Cardinals."There were plusses and minuses with going to St. Louis," Buehrle said before the Series started."I would have to deal with a lot of family and friends coming up here, and it would have been five times worse if I would have gone back home."I'm disappointed we're not there ... but it's kind of a plus."Nonetheless, Buehrle has made no secret over the years - mostly at St. Louis Baseball Writers' dinners - that he would want to play for the Cardinals one day.Asked the other day by a non-Chicago, non-St. Louis reporter which team was his favorite as a kid, Buehrle responded, "You don't know who I'm a fan of? Are you serious?"St. Louis Cardinals."The Cardinals would like to have seen him this week.

Source: http://www.stltoday.com/