White Sox snap pair of streaks, defeat Roy Halladay and Blue Jays 6-5

September 10, 11:12 PMChicago White Sox ExaminerJJ Stankevitz

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The win probability graph for tonight's 6-5 White Sox win. The green line represents a team's chances of winning and fluctuates as plays take place in the game.

With their 6-5 win over Toronto Wednesday night, the White Sox snapped a couple of streaks: first, Toronto's ten-game winning streak, and second, the White Sox' seven-game losing streak against the Blue Jays that dated back to 2007.

Wednesday's game was the first time the Blue Jays lost to the White Sox or Twins in all of 2008—and Toronto was beaten with their best on the mound in Roy Halladay, who entered tonight's game with an 18-9 record and 2.64 ERA on the season.

The White Sox quickly jumped out to a two-run lead on singles by AJ Pierzynski and Jim Thome (see above) in the first inning, giving Mark Buehrle a comfortable cushion that was all he needed to get his 13th win of the year.

Buehrle was changing speeds well and locating both in and out with his pitches—and when these are put together, Buehrle transforms into a great starter. He looked nothing short of that in his 7.1 innings of work, allowing just one earned run (which scored on a home run allowed by Octavio Dotel) on seven hits, two walks, and six strikeouts.

A two-run double by Pierzynski and a successful squeeze bunt by Jerry Owens tacked on three big runs in the seventh to extend the White Sox' lead to 5-0 and knock Halladay out of the game. The five runs the White Sox scored off Halladay were the most the Sox had scored off a Toronto pitcher all year.

After Alex Rios belted his two-run home run off Dotel, Brian Anderson added a huge insurance run on a RBI single in the eighth to put the White Sox up 6-2.

When Ozzie Guillen went to closer Bobby Jenks, it looked like the Blue Jays were destined to lose for the first time in a week and a half. However, Toronto did not go down without a fight, giving the White Sox a major scare in the ninth inning.

After Jenks froze Gregg Zaun with a nasty 12-6 curveball, he gave up a single to Joe Inglett, walked Scott Rolen, and then gave up an RBI single to Lyle Overbay to make it 6-3.

Marco Scutaro then laced a RBI double on the first pitch he saw from Jenks to cut the score to 6-4. At that point, the Blue Jays had runners on second and third with just one out and went from being dead in the water to being in good position to tie the game.

Jenks got Jose Bautista to ground out to Orlando Cabrera for the second out of the inning, but Overbay scored and Scutaro advanced to third, putting him 90 feet away from scoring the tying run with a red-hot Rios coming to the plate.

However, Rios proved to be over-aggressive in the at-bat, swinging at two pitches out of the strike zone to complete a game-ending strikeout.

The White Sox' win proved to be even more important, as Minnesota trounced Kansas City by a score of 7-1 in Minneapolis. With both teams pulling off victories, the White Sox' lead in the AL Central stayed at just one game.

The Royals will start Brandon Duckworth (2-1, 6.60) against the Twins' Francisco Liriano (5-3, 3.33) in a 1:10 PM CST game tomorrow. The White Sox will finish off their series with the Blue Jays when Gavin Floyd (15-6, 3.72) against Shaun Marcum (8-6, 3.42) at 7:11 PM CST.