Buehrle bleaches Red Sox
By john • Aug 8th, 2008 • Category: aj pierzynski, boston red sox, chicago white sox, major leagues, mark buehrle, top story
Mark Buehrle held the Boston Red Sox to just four hits and one run over seven plus innings Friday night to keep his team the Chicago White Sox in first place in the AL Central.
Buehrle improved to 9-10 on the year lowering his ERA to 3.94 along the way. While not known for striking out hitters Buehrle retired Boston’s heavy hitting trio or David Ortiz, Jason Bay and Kevin Youkillis each twice via the strike out.
Catcher A.J. Pierzynski hit a sac fly in the third to give the White Sox an early 1-0 lead and Orlando Cabrera drove in two with a double in the fifth. Pierzynski later singled in the seventh to give the White Sox a 4-0 lead.
Buehrle stepped up for the White Sox on Friday throwing 65 of his 110 pitches for strikes over seven innings against a Red Sox team that has scored the fourth most runs in all of baseball.
After allowing a hit to Jason Varitek, reliever Octavio Dotel replaced Buehrle in the eighth but after getting the first hitter out, he walked J.D. Drew before giving up a three run home run to Dustin Pedroia narrowing the White Sox lead to 4-3.
White Sox outfielder Carlos Quentin hit his 31st home run of the season in the bottom of the inning, Bobby Jenks pitched the ninth picking up his 23rd save and the White Sox held on for a 5-3 win in the first game of a three game series,
The win keeps the White Sox one game ahead of Minnesota who defeated Seattle 7-3. The Red Sox will send Daisuke Matsuzaka up against Jose Contreras tomorrow. While Clay Buchholz will start the final game of the series against White Sox right hander Gavin Floyd.
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