Morning Box Score

By Marcus Gilmer in News on Jun 12, 2009 3:00PM

White Sox Walk Off Win Over Tigers
The White Sox bullpen blew a brilliant performance by Gavin Floyd but were fortunate enough to be on the winning side of a walk-off win as a Scott Podsednik single in the bottom of the ninth gave the Pale Hose a 4-3 win over the division rival Detroit Tigers. After a nearly three-hour rain delay to start the game, Jim Thome gave the Sox an early 1-0 lead when he hit his 553rd career home run in the second. In the third, Thome added to the lead when he smacked a bases loaded single. Meanwhile, on the mound, Floyd had a brilliant outing for the Sox, allowing only one run on five hits and striking out five over eight solid innings. The Sox took a 3-1 lead into the ninth when Bobby Jenks suffered his second blown save of the season, giving up a two-run homer in the ninth to Curtis Granderson. But, as we mentioned, the Sox turned this one around and Ozzie described the love-fest in the dugout: "Today, everybody could have just gone down and said, 'Oh, there we go again,' when Granderson hit the home run. Everybody went back to the dugout and was rooting and cheering for each other."

Astros Edge Cubs in Extras
The other Chicago team was involved in a walk-off game of their own though the Cubs wound up on the wrong end of it. It was a pitcher's duel in Houston yesterday afternoon as the Astros edged the Cubs in extra innings, 2-1. Both teams got excellent performances from their starting pitchers. Ryan Dempster gave up only the lone run while scattering seven hits over seven innings and Russ Ortiz pitched 5.1 scoreless innings for the Astros. The pitching performances carried over into the extra frames. The Astros struck first with a first-inning run off a Carlos Lee sac-fly. No more runs would cross the plate for either team until the top of the ninth when Derrek Lee smacked a solo homer to tie the game. Finally, in the thirteenth inning, with Cubs reliever Jose Ascanio on the mound, the Astros were able to put across the winning run thanks to Geoff Blum who for the second straight game gave the Astros a walk-off hit. The Cubs did what the Cubs do best, strand runners in scoring position, frustrating Sweet Lou: "When we had chances, we're swinging at bad pitches out of the zone, can't make contact. Come on. This is Major League Baseball. I know the game isn't the easiest to play because I played it for a long time, but it's not this [darn] hard."