Tonight’s game was a pitchers’ battle for the first half of it, and turned into an offensive show in the second half. The Chicago White Sox had the better of it, and came away with an 8-4 win to climb back within a half-game of the Tribe and dropping Cleveland to 76-78 with just eight games left.
Ubaldo Jimenez matched pitches with Mark Buehrle and actually had the better of it heading into the seventh, leading 2-1 on the strength of a two-run Travis Hafner homer in the sixth.
But Chicago touched Jimenez (4-3) with three runs in the seventh, and then got to reliever Chad Durbin for four more in the eighth, and though the Indians added two of their own in the home half of the eighth on a Jason Kipnis sacrifice fly and a Carlos Santana single, it was not nearly enough.
Jimenez ended up going seven innings and allowing four runs on six hits, while Buehrle (12-9) went six innings, surrendering two runs on only four hits.
Five Chicago pitchers combined to work the last three innings.
The Tribe finished with eight hits, with nobody getting more than one. Besides Hafner’s 13th home run, Kipnis and Kosuke Fukudome each doubled to account for the Indians’ extra-base hits on the night in front of an announced crowd of 12,400.
The Indians get one more look at the White Sox in 2011 Thursday night when Jeanmar Gomez takes on Philip Humber at 7:05.
Plenty of good seats still remain.