41-20: Dustin The Wind [groan]

Dustin Hermanson detonated spectacularly in San Diego, blowing his first save of the season, and spoiling a Buehrle masterpiece in a 2-1 loss. After a horrendous, gut-wrenching blown play and the plate call where Paul Konerko was incorrectly called out to end the top of the ninth with the Sox leading 1-0, with one out Ramon Hernandez homered to left, the Padres dinked in weak hit, a double, an intentional walk, and a single through the infield gave them a 2-1 win.

The White Sox struggled all night against a terrific-looking rookie pitcher with a nasty, Wilson-Alvarez-grade hook. It was one of those games where you just knew something bad was going to happen, and when Konerko was called out and Hernandez hit the home run, I thought I'd burst a blood vessel. Fortunately (he writes sarcastically), Hermanson royally blew up, and saved Johnny Mostil from his own bile.

Ozzie got caught in a tactical bind in the top of the 8th when Uribe walked and Crede singled to put runners on the corners with nobody out. Buehrle was due to hit, and Ozzie let him hit; he failed to get a bunt down in a situation normally crying for a pinch hitter. This bit of nastiness I blame on the perversity of making AL teams play by the NL's anachronistic rules more than any "mistake" by Ozzie -- pinch hitting would have been second-guessable as well -- and with Marte not available and Giles lurking third in the bottom of the inning, I guess I can see why he left Buehrle in. Podsednik took a questionable called third strike and Iguchi struck out too to snuff the rally.