|
|
Esteban Loaiza looks to keep his April winning streak alive as the Chicago
White Sox open a three-game series against the Tampa Bay Devil Rays.
Loaiza is 8-0 with a 2.05 ERA in April over the past two seasons and is 12-1
in April dating back to 2001. He's off to a 3-0 start this year after going
21-9 with a 2.90 ERA to finish second in the AL Cy Young Award voting last season.
The Devil Rays are familiar with Loaiza, especially after he shut them down in his last start on Sunday.
Loaiza pitched a two-hitter to lead the White Sox to a 5-0 win over Tampa Bay. He walked one and struck out five, needing just 2 hours, 12 minutes for his fifth career shutout and 11th complete game.
``He made it look easy,'' Tampa Bay manager Lou Piniella said. ``That, plus our guys are not swinging the bats very well. That's a bad combination.''
ADVERTISEMENT
The Devil Rays have scored 19 runs over the last seven games and are batting
.246 for the season. Cleanup hitter Aubrey Huff is batting .180 with just one
home run and six RBIs after clubbing 34 homers last year.
Huff showed signs of breaking out his slump on Thursday, going 2-for-4 in Tampa Bay's 7-6 loss to the Baltimore Orioles. It was Huff's first multi-hit game since going 2-for-5 the season opener in Japan on March 30.
Robert Fick homered for the Devil Rays, who were vying to win a second straight game for the first time this season. Tampa Bay has lost four of its last five games.
Chicago has won six of nine and is coming off a 4-3 win over the New York Yankees on Thursday. The White Sox are a bit banged up as Frank Thomas missed all three games of the Yankees series with a hamstring injury.
Jose Valentin is already on the DL with a bad hamstring and White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen reiterated Thursday that he doesn't want another player there.
``I don't want to DL (Thomas) because I don't think it is necessary. ... Missing
Frank and Jose at the same time is hard on our lineup.''