White Sox 2005 Rewind: Frank Thomas and Paul Konerko's sixth-inning slugfest

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How do you turn a 6-2 deficit into a 12-6 lead?

I mean, with 10 runs. You don’t have to be a mathematician to figure that one out.

But still, when you score all 10 of those runs in one inning, it’s pretty darn impressive. And that’s what the White Sox did June 15, 2005, against the Arizona Diamondbacks, giving fans something to go crazy for on a rainy night on the South Side.

The White Sox were held pretty well in check by Russ Ortiz through the game’s first five innings, as the D-backs’ offense jumped all over Jon Garland. The big blow against the White Sox 10-game winner was a three-run homer off the bat of Tony Clark, the current union head.

But then came the bottom of the sixth.

With the White Sox down, 6-2, Frank Thomas started the six-inning score-fest with a solo homer, the fourth of the dozen dingers he hit in just 34 games that season. He didn’t play much during the most memorable season in club history, but the Hall of Famer did his damage in his limited action.

That opened the floodgates against Ortiz, who had allowed just one earned run to that point. The White Sox followed with a walk, a single and an RBI single. Then A.J. Pierzynski reached on Royce Clayton’s throwing error, which brought home another run. Clayton made another blunder on the very next play, unable to figure out what to do with Jermaine Dye caught between third and home. Clayton didn’t make a play of any kind, allowing the tying run to score.

Then the boomsticks came out. Juan Uribe smacked a three-run homer to break the tie that got the crowd — and the broadcast booth — rocking.

Darrin Jackson: “That’s the team the Sox need to be, a team that has been awakened!”

That finally prompted a pitching change, and Scott Podsednik finally bounced into an out after all that activity. But the White Sox weren’t done by a longshot. Tadahito Iguchi hit one of his six triples on the 2005 season, and Thomas followed with a walk to set up Paul Konerko, who delivered the White Sox second three-run blast of the inning.

Just like that. The White Sox took this game from comeback to blowout in just one half inning. The bullpen took the ball from there and cruised to the 12-6 win.

It's pretty cool to watch the two best home run hitters in club history go deep in the same inning. Though they spent seven seasons together as White Sox teammates, innings like these were rarities.

The White Sox hit 200 home runs during the 2005 season and got four of them this night, three in one inning. They had plenty of ways to win and utilized all of them throughout the 99-victory campaign and march to the World Series. But they could also slug, and that’s what helped them hang double digits on Ortiz and the D-backs in just one inning in mid June.

What else?

— Neal Cotts and Cliff Politte took over after the White Sox offense flipped a four-run deficit into a six-run lead. And though the D-backs were putting runners on base all over the place against Garland, they couldn’t do much against Cotts and Politte, who allowed just two base runners in their three combined innings of relief, retiring nine of the 11 batters they faced. The White Sox bullpen was super reliable, and the season-ending numbers showed it. They ranked third in baseball with a 3.23 relief ERA.

— Troy Glaus was a four-time All Star in his career, but boy did he make a lot of errors at third base. He made one in this game, allowing a run to come home in the fifth inning. He ended up with 24 of them in 2005, the fourth most in baseball that season. Five years earlier, Glaus made a whopping 33 errors, but that total didn’t lead the league, either. He finished behind the 36 of White Sox shortstop Jose Valentin.

— Can’t say I’ve ever heard of Leo Daigle, but it appears he was the Luis Robert of his time. In his second year in the White Sox organization after coming over from the Tigers in 2004, Daigle was heavily featured in the farm report during this game after hitting for the cycle at Class A Winston-Salem. Daigle tore it up with the then-Warthogs that season, slashing .341/.414/.637 with 29 homers and 112 RBIs in 108 games. Mercy! He played 25 games at Triple-A Charlotte in 2005 and scuffled. In 2006, he played in the Orioles organization and was out of pro ball by 2007.

Since you been gone

While #SoxRewind is extensive, it doesn’t include all 162 regular-season contests, meaning we’re going to be skipping over some games. So what’d we miss since last time?

June 13, 2005: The D-backs jumped all over Jose Contreras, tagging him for eight runs, including seven in the first two innings. The White Sox got their lone run on a Thomas home run. White Sox lose, 8-1, fall to 42-21.

June 14, 2005: Orlando Hernandez didn’t fare much better than Contreras, surrendering six runs in another blowout. The White Sox hit three homers in the defeat. White Sox lose, 10-4, fall to 42-22.

Next up

#SoxRewind rolls on Saturday, when you can catch the June 17, 2005, game against the Dodgers, starting at 4 p.m. on NBC Sports Chicago. Mark Buehrle is in dominant form, tossing a complete-game shutout.

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