Morning Box Score: Sox Even Up Crosstown Classic

By Marcus Gilmer in News on Jun 28, 2009 4:00PM

Another day, another thriller. For the third time in their four games this season, the winning team came from behind late for victory as this time the White Sox earned a walk-off win over the Cubs 8-7. The Sox opened the scoring by piecing together runs in each of the first two innings to take a 2-0 lead. The Cubs responded in the top of the third by knocking a few in themselves to knot the game at 2-2 and took the lead on a D-Lee sac fly in the fifth. The Pale Hose countered with a Scott Podsednik solo homer and A.J Pierzinski slapping a bases loaded single to score two, putting the Sox ahead 5-3. The see-saw battle continued in the sixth courtesy of a two-RBI double by Alfosno Soriano and an RBI single by Ryan Theriot to put the Cubs up 6-5. That lead lasted all of a few minutes as in the bottom of the inning, Podsednik singled in Wise for his third RBI of the game, tying the game at 6-6.

(Deep breath)

Ryan Freel put the Cubs up once more in the eighth by sprinting home on an Andres Blanco ground out. But the struggles of Carlos Marmol continued as he gave up an Alexei Ramirez single that scored Gordon Beckham to tie the game one more time at 7-7. And it was Beckham who singled who the winning run in the bottom of the ninth, plating Josh Fields for the winning run as the Sox walked-off with the victory. Neither starter fared well: Dempster lasted just five innings for the Cubs, giving up five runs on eight hits while Mark Buehrle gave up five runs (only three earned) over 5.2 innings pitched. And while neither bullpen seemed able to put the game away at first, it was the Sox relievers that came out on top, shutting the Cubs down in the final two innings to help their team earn the win.

Considering the tumultuous nature of the season, Lou remained pretty zen for the Cubs, saying, "We win a couple, and lose a couple. We have to get on a little bit of a roll. We won four in a row and stopped ourselves. Hopefully, we can win a series [Sunday] and keep going. We just have to take it one game at a time, and hopefully we'll find ourselves in a lot better position." Sox first baseman Paul Konerko captured the intense feeling of a rivalry that is tied at 35-35 overall when he said, "These games, we were just talking about it, it's amazing how this rivalry is so dead even, not only in the actual wins and losses, but the games are so close. There are not too many games that are more than a couple of runs apart."

We hope everyone is rested because the rubber match is Zambrano versus Danks and starts this afternoon at 1:05 p.m. with the Cubs broadcast team on WGN and the Sox coverage on CSN.

If there seemed to be no joy in Wrigleyville last night, it wasn't just because of the White Sox late-inning heroics over the Cubs or the ongoing battle of head cases between Lou and Milton, who apparently hugged it out pregame. No, news broke that the next time former fan favorite Mark DeRosa - who was just in town last weekend with Cleveland - will next return to Wrigley in...Cardinal Red. The Indians traded DeRosa to St. Louis for reliever Chris Perez and a player to be named later.