White Sox-Indians: Opening Day Win Thwarted for Chicago

Baseball is in full swing ladies and gentlemen, and it is great!  The White Sox took on the Cleveland Indians today at the newly named Progressive Field and for the third straight year, opening day became the battle of left-handers between Mark Buerhle and C.C. Sabathia. 

For the second straight year, Sabathia and Cleveland were victorious. 

Mark Buerhle had a rough outing not even making it out of the second inning.  He gave up seven runs all of them earned on seven hits a walk and a strikeout. 

C.C. went 5 1/3 giving up five runs on six hits. 

Newly acquired reliever Octavio Dotel picked up the loss as he went one inning giving up three hits and a big double to Casey Blake which cleared the bases and  sealed the game for the Indians. 

Going deep for the Indians were Grady Sizemore and Franklin Gutierrez.

On the other side, the White Sox still had their bats and never were out of the game.  The middle of the Sox order kept them in the game as their 3-4-5 hits combined for 6-14 with six hits and seven RBI's.  

Jim Thome sent the ball over the wall twice and Jermaine Dye also went deep.  Their home runs were the first opening day homeruns since Sammy Sosa did it in 1991. 

New lead-off hitter Nick Swisher went 2-4, something they will need all season from their lead-off man. 

 All but one of the White Sox hitters had a hit.  Newly acquired Alexei Ramirez from Cuba went 0 for 4 with three strike outs for the injured Jerry Owens. 

The Sox are in the toughest division in baseball and looking to bounce back from their dismal season last year. 

Game 2 of this three game set is tomorrow at 6:05 p.m. CT with Fausto Carmona pitching for the Indians and Javier Vasquez on the bump for the White Sox.

Tj McNulty

White Sox writer