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Opportunity lost Jittery White Sox squandered chances in opener
CHICAGO (AP) -- After making the most of their chances during the regular season, the White Sox fell victim to wasted opportunities in their playoff opener. Chicago let its best chance to win slip away in the ninth. With the winning run on second and one out, Jose Valentin and Magglio Ordonez flied out, leaving the door open for Seattle to break through in the 10th to win 7-4 Tuesday. Four times, the White Sox advanced a runner to third with less than two outs. All four times, the major league's highest-scoring team failed to drive those runners in. As a result, Chicago is still in search of its first postseason victory at home since 1959 and needs a win Wednesday to avoid ahead to Seattle down 2-0 in the best-of-five series. "We had the opportunities early to knock them out and we didn't," said Frank Thomas, who left the bases loaded in the fourth and stranded four runners. "A lot of young guys made mistakes. Guys were keyed up. ... I tried to do too much -- trying to hit home runs when all you needed were singles." Thomas, who led the White Sox with a .328 average, 43 homers and 143 RBIs this season, finished 0-for-3 with two walks. In the ninth, a bloop single by Charles Johnson leading off brought a rare sellout crowd of 45,290 at Comiskey Park to its feet. Ray Durham advanced him to second with a sacrifice bunt. But Valentin flied to left and Mesa walked Thomas intentionally after going 2-0 to the potential AL MVP. With the chance to end it, Ordonez hit the first pitch for a routine flyout to right. Moments later, Keith Foulke gave up back-to-back homers to Edgar Martinez and John Olerud in the decisive 10th. "I just threw a bad changeup (to Martinez) and it's one of those occasions where you pay for it," said Foulke, who had nine saves and a 0.75 ERA from Sept. 1 through the end of the regular season. Chicago missed an early chance to blow open the game after it loaded the bases with one out in the fourth. Singles by Herbert Perry and Charles Johnson and a walk to Ray Durham helped knock out starter Freddy Garcia. But Brett Tomko came in to squelch it, getting Valentin and Thomas to fly out. In the sixth, with runners at first and third and one out after a walk to Perry and a Johnson single, Seattle shortstop Alex Rodriguez dived to his left to grab Durham's hard grounder up the middle, then flipped to Mark McLemore at second to start an inning-ending double play. Chicago manager Jerry Manuel blamed playoff jitters in part for his young team's failure to deliver in the clutch. "We had some opportunities to really put the ballgame away and basically we just didn't get the job done," he said. "They made the key pitches at the right time ... (and) we might have been little impatient in those situations. That's a part of the youth that we have. "But I think for the most part that we played a decent ballgame for our first game being in an atmosphere such as this, and I think we'll be fine." Chicago had 133 errors in the regular season -- fourth-most in the AL -- but got unexpected standout defense, including Ray Durham's sparkling over-the-shoulder grab of Joe Oliver's fly to short right in the fourth. "We get criticized a lot for our defense, but our defense kept us in the game," Durham said.
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