CLEVELAND—The White Sox and Cleveland Indians spkit a pair of one run games in their Day-Night double header.
Asdrubal Cabrera’s leadoff home run in the fourth broke a tie game, and the Indians defeated the Sox 4-3 in the first game.Fausto Carmona (7-15) allowed three runs in six innings and won for the first time since Aug. 17.Travis Hafner and Kosuke Fukudome also homered off Gavin Floyd (12-12), who hasn’t won since Aug. 29. The Sox have lost eight of their last nine games.The teams, who were eliminated from the AL Central race last week when Detroit clinched the division, are battling for second place. The Indians lead the White Sox by 2½ games.Hafner’s two-run homer in the first gave Cleveland the lead, but The White Sox tied the game in the second on Adam Dunn’s RBI double and Alejandro De Aza’s run-scoring single.Cabrera’s home run put Cleveland ahead and was his 24th of the season. Cabrera, who entered Saturday’s game against Minnesota in an 0-for-20 slump, has eight hits in his last 13 at-bats. He has homered in back-to-back games.Fukudome homered with one out in the fifth.Carmona struck out three and walked two. Relievers Joe Smith, Vinnie Pestano and Chris Perez, who recorded his 35th save, blanked Chicago over the final three innings.The Sox first four hitters reached against Carmona in the second. Singles by A.J. Pierzynski and Alex Rios started the inning. Dunn, batting .165 when the game began, slapped a double down the third base line that scored Pierzynski. De Aza’s single to right tied the game.De Aza added an RBI groundout in the sixth.Floyd gave up four runs and seven hits in 6 2/3 innings. He struck out seven and didn’t walk a batter.
The long day ended on a high note for the Sox as Alexei Ramirez’s seventh-inning single broke the game’s final tie and led to a 5-4 victory and a split with.Asdrubal Cabrera’s solo home run and six strong innings from Fausto Carmona gave Cleveland a 4-3 victory in the first game.The teams, who were eliminated from the AL Central race last week when Detroit clinched the division, are battling for second place. The Indians lead the White Sox by 1½ games.Trailing 4-0 in the fifth, the Sox scored a run in the fifth and two runs in both the sixth and seventh. Matt Thornton (2-5) pitched 1 1/3 innings for the victory in the second game and Chris Sale went the final 1 2/3 innings for his seventh save. Cleveland took a 4-3 lead into the seventh before the Sox rallied against rookie reliever Zach Putnam (0-1). Tyler Flowers started the rally with a single and took third on Gordon Beckham’s third double of the game. Juan Pierre’s groundout tied the game before Ramirez’s bloop single to center over a drawn-in infield gave the visitors the lead.Beckham became the first White Sox player to have three doubles in a game since Aaron Rowand in 2005.Both teams started rookies in the second game. Dylan Axelrod, making his second major-league start, allowed four runs in 4 2/3 innings for the White Sox while Zach McAllister, in his third big-league start, gave up two runs in 5 1/3 innings for the Indians. Cleveland used four rookie pitchers in the second game, which led to problems finding the plate. Putnam hit Paul Konerko in the hip in the seventh inning. Josh Judy hit Beckham in the back and Ramirez in the shoulder in the ninth. Guillen wasn’t happy seeing so many of his players get drilled, but didn’t think it was intentional. Cleveland managed one hit off Axelrod through three innings before scoring four times in the fourth. Jim Thome’s RBI single gave Cleveland the lead. Matt LaPorta’s run-scoring double and sacrifice flies by Grady Sizemore and Jack Hannahan completed the scoring. McAllister held the White Sox scoreless until the fifth when Beckham’s RBI double scored yje Sox first run. Alejandro De Aza’s two-run double off Rafael Perez in the sixth cut the lead to one.
NOTES—The first game was the makeup of a July 23 rainout at Progressive Field. … Ozzie Guillen says Mark Buehrle will start Wednesday night. Buehrle (11-9, 3.74 ERA) has sore biceps after being hit with a ball in his last start…..RHP Ubaldo Jimenez (4-2, 4.56) will start for the Indians. … Guillen played most of his regulars in Tuesday’s first game. … The White Sox are 10-6 against the Indians with two games to play in the season series. … Indians 3B Jack Hannahan was a defensive replacement in the eighth inning, his first appearance since straining his left calf Sept. 4.He started game two. … C Lou Marson struck out in all three at-bats. … The Indians are playing nine games in seven days on their final homestand of the season. Cleveland played a makeup game with Seattle on Monday and will play another day-night doubleheader against Minnesota on Saturday. … The Indians recalled RHP Corey Kluber from Triple-A Columbus.