Kansas City Royals squeak by Chicago White Sox 2-1

Bobby Jenks gives up 2-run homer in ninth and Sox rally falls short

By Mark Gonzales

Facing Joe Crede and not Joe Mauer in a Minnesota Twins uniform will seem odd to the White Sox when they play their American League Central rivals this weekend at U.S. Cellular Field.

Much has changed for both sides since the Sox beat the Twins in a one-game tiebreaker to advance to the American League playoffs.

Even with a shaken-up lineup that produced just one ninth-inning run Thursday to snap a 17-inning scoreless drought, the Sox remain convinced they will start getting enough offense to support their starting pitchers.

"If all of a sudden you start looking at your average on the third day of the season, that's not going to help you at all," manager Ozzie Guillen said Thursday after the Sox lost 2-1 to the Royals on Coco Crisp's two-run homer off Bobby Jenks in the ninth. "But we're going to hit."

The Sox led in only two of the 27 innings against a stubborn Royals pitching staff that limited them to seven hits over the final two games.

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Royals 2, White Sox 0: positives and negatives

by JJ Stankevitz

I've been saying it all along—Juan Cruz and Joakim Soria are going to be really tough to make a comeback against. Coupled with Zack Greinke hitting his spots and featuring an absolutely filthy slider, the Sox didn't have much of a shot to win this one.

Positives:

* Gavin Floyd. I haven't been too high on Floyd coming into this year, but his spring performance gave me some hope that maybe he won't see the kind of regression that many are predicting this year. Floyd pitched the ball extremely well today, attacking early with his fastball and curveball and then slowly throwing more cutters and sliders as the game went on. He even mixed in a few changeups, which was really nice to see as well. All in all, Floyd struck out nine and only walked two. Perhaps more encouraging was that Floyd generally kept the ball on the ground, as he got eight groundouts to four flyouts on the day. So not only was this start encouraging for Floyd from a results standpoint, but it was encouraging from a peripheral stats standpoint, too.

* Matt Thornton & Scott Linebrink. Thornton showed no ill effects from pitching in the World Baseball Classic as he came out throwing like the same old Thornton—jamming hitters inside with his fastball and getting his share of swings and misses. Linebrink struck out the side in his inning of work, throwing a good mix of mid-90's fastballs, splitters, and changeups. If the Sox can get Linebrink going like he was for the first half of last year, games could become six-inning affairs with Linebrink, Dotel, Thornton, and Jenks all throwing the ball well.

Negatives:

* The offense. Anytime you can only manage three hits and not score, the offense is going to end up as a negative. But take into account that Greinke threw a great game while Cruz and Soria both looked very good out of the Kansas City bullpen. The offense hasn't been great in these first two games, but Gil Meche and Greinke are no slouches themselves. Yes, this offense is still what we thought it was and Dewayne Wise still hasn't looked remotely acceptable at the plate yet, but it's far too early and the Sox have faced far too good of pitching to really get a feel for what direction this offense will go in 2009.

One final note: you better believe there's some bad blood between these two teams. Greinke throwing inside twice on Carlos Quentin—hitting him with the second pitch—may or may not have been intentional, but one thing's for sure: these two teams really don't seem to like each other. There are 17 more games to go in the season series with Kansas City, and it really wouldn't shock me if sometime in the next few months these two teams get into a little fracas.