WHITE SOX 5, ASTROS 3: Joe Crede and clutch relief work help Chicago hang on in its first Series game in 46 years.
By MARC TOPKIN, Times Staff Writer
Published October 23, 2005
[AP photo]
Joe Crede's home run in the fourth soars over the glove of Willy Taveras, giving the White Sox a 4-3 lead.
CHICAGO - Having waited 46 years to host another World Series game, the White Sox did what they could to make things exciting Saturday night.
They twice took early leads and lost them. They abandoned their small-ball methods and hit two home runs. They got an actual stolen base from catcher A.J. Pierzynski. They even - and this where it really got wild and crazy - turned to their little-used and oft-questioned bullpen.
And that turned out to be the key to their 5-3 victory over Houston in the opening game of the best-of-seven Series.
"People said they didn't see my bullpen in the playoffs," White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen said. "Now they see it."
Having nursed a one-run lead after Joe Crede's fourth-inning homer, Sox starter Jose Contreras worked his way out of a couple of slight jams, thanks in large part to two big defensive plays by Crede.
But unlike their final four games of the American League Championship Series, Contreras was not going to be able to do it alone. When he gave up a double to open the eighth, Guillen first brought in Neal Cotts, the only one of their relievers to work in the past two weeks. Cotts allowed a single to Lance Berkman but rebounded to strike out Morgan Ensberg and Mike Lamb.
Guillen then walked back to the mound, abandoned the usual signal to the bullpen and instead held his hands wide of his hips, his way of indicating his preference for closer Bobby Jenks.
"That's his trademark," Guillen said. "Not to embarrass the kid, but I wanted the big boy."
All Jenks did was throw six pitches to Astros veteran Jeff Bagwell, three at 99 mph and three at 100, including the last one which Bagwell swung at and missed. He followed with a 1-2-3 ninth, a pretty good first Series game for a 25-year-old who was pitching at Double A until making his big-league debut against the Devil Rays on July 6.
"I think it's pretty funny calling the "big guy' in," Jenks said. "I know he does a lot of things out of humor. He doesn't mean anything by it. I'm taking a smile with it."
Bagwell, who missed four months after shoulder surgery and was making his first start, didn't have much of a chance against the 6-foot-3, 270-pounder.
"It doesn't matter if you have 500 at-bats or five at-bats, when you're facing a guy throwing 100 miles an hour it's not like you just time it and hit it out," Bagwell said. "He's made a pretty good living this year."
Jenks said he couldn't find his curveball or slider during warmups, so he had no choice but to use all fastballs. He got ahead 0-and-2 and remembered that the scouting report said Bagwell would chase high fastballs.
"I was going with my strength against his weakness," Jenks said.
"Bagwell's a Hall of Famer," Pierzynski said. "But when Jenks is throwing 100 miles an hour, I'll take my chances."
The Sox had a lot to smile about. It was the first World Series game in Chicago since 1959, and neither afternoon storms nor chilly temperatures, 53 degrees at first pitch and dropping, could diminish the excitement.
There were two bursts of fireworks in the early innings as Jermaine Dye and Crede homered for the White Sox, and one major Rocket flameout as Houston starter Roger Clemens left after two ineffective innings with a strained left hamstring.
For Clemens, it was a disappointing return to the Series spotlight.
He was supposedly headed for retirement when he walked off the field two years ago in Miami to a salute from both dugouts and a dizzying blur of flashbulbs. But he instead signed with his hometown Astros and, after falling just short in 2004, at age 43 was excited to help take them, and their fans, to baseball's grandest stage.
His body, though, failed him Saturday, and if the start turns out to be the last of Clemens' amazing career, there won't be much to look back on. He lasted only two innings, allowing three runs on four hits, and threw a whopping 54 pitches. It was the shortest of his eight career Series appearances and matched the second shortest of his 33 postseason starts.
"He's one of the best pitchers in baseball history," Guillen said. "No matter who you bring in from the bullpen, he's not going to be as good."
The Sox didn't show any signs of sluggishness after a five-day layoff following their five-game ALCS dismantling of the Angels. They took a 1-0 lead on Dye's first-inning homer and a 3-1 lead on some good baserunning by Carl Everett, a lack of execution by the Astros and a double by Juan Uribe.
Contreras, though, couldn't hold the lead. "He wasn't as sharp as he was in the past," Guillen said.
Crede, whose resume of clutch hits includes the winners in Games 2 and 5 of the ALCS, came through again in the fourth, knocking an 0-and-2 pitch from reliever Wandy Rodriguez just over the left-centerfield fence. "For some reason, he's done that his whole career," Pierzynski. "Game on the line, the one guy we want up there is Crede."
