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White Sox Sat May 23 2009
Cuban missle sinks Pirates: Sox win back-to-back games
After suffering their worst loss in team history Thursday afternoon to the Twins the Sox righted the ship by beating the Pirates Friday night 2-0 and 4-0 tonight. They rode the bat of Alexei Ramirez to victory as he would hit is second home run in two nights.
Ramirez was batting number two after it proved successful in Fridays game. He was placed there by Joey Cora who is filling in for Ozzie Guillen, who is tending to his ailing father-in-law in Venezuela. He hit a home run in the two hole Friday night, so it would only make sense to keep him there. Perhaps Ramirez relaxed a little bit with his skipper out of town.
Jermaine Dye put the game out of reach with a solo home run (11) in the eighth. That was all Sox starter Clayton Richard needed to take care of the Pirates.
Richard who was the center piece of the failed Jake Peavy deal pitched six innings of shutout baseball. He surrendered four hits and struck out eight, earning his first win of the season as a starter. This is the second shutout of the series and their second series win in a row. Facing the lowly Pirates probably doesn't hurt either.
They will look for the sweep tomorrow as Sox ace Mark Buehrle (6-1) will take the hill for the Southsiders. He will face the Pirates Jeff Karstens (1-2). Game time is 1:05 p.m. CT. With their win tonight the Sox improve to 19-23 and are five and a half games out of first place.
Side note: Despite Jake Peavy exercising his no trade clause thus eliminating the trade to come to the White Sox, General Manager Kenny Williams has left the offer for Peavy on table in case he decides to change his mind.