This collection of entries is from September 04, 2004.
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Back at the park on Labor Day weekend, and I can finally say the weather is perfect for baseball - 81° and winds that are 15mph, but are actually warm for a change.
Seattle started Ryan Franklin who was 3-13 for the year. It was easy to take him, something we desperately needed to stroke our ego and get us going. Pour guy gave up 4 homeruns (out of 5 total) in 3 2/3 innings (and 86 pitches in 3 2/3 innings isn't that good either) and struckout only 1. He also had a throwing error, one of 4 for the team.
On our side of the card, we had 5 homeruns including Willie Harris's first one of the year. Paul Konerko had 2 homeruns and now has 34. We had a look at reliever Jeff Bajenaru, who got called-up when Cliff Politte had an emergency appendectomy this week. He gave up 3 hits in a third of an inning, all of which eventually scored. Shingo Takatsu had to come in and cleanup (he allowed 2 of those 3 runs). It's nice to see that they stadium crew slightly changed "Shingo Time" so that the gong doesn't sound like a Chinese gong, but sounds more like a Buddhist temple bell. Timo Perez was the guy that won us the game with a throw from right field to third baseman Juan Uribe, who tagged out Bret Boone.
Let me get on my anti-Joe Borchard horse again. Ozzie had him bat 9th as the designated Hitter. How embarrassing is it to have a DH that's batting .154 (.150 by the end of the evening)? I'm tired of the Borchard Experiment. It's time to move on.
The man of the night, however, was Ichiro Suzuki. He's focused on breaking the hit record for a season by going 5 for 5 in tonight's game, earning him a standing ovation from the White Sox fans. He is now batting .379 with 223 hits. (The single-season record for most hits in a season is 257, set by Hall of Famer George Sisler of the St. Louis Browns in 1920. He also has 34 more hits to go to set a record for the most hits during a four-year span, a record currently held by Bill Terry, who had 918 hits from 1929-32.)
Mark Buehrle got the win and improved to 13-8.
(Boxscore)
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