Wednesday night he might have wanted to steal the line from the late football coach John McKay, who said when asked about his team’s execution, “I think it’s a good idea.”
The Sox’s inability to do the little things hurt them again in a big way in a 5-4 loss to the Detroit Tigers.
In a series Guillen said the Sox had to win to keep their dim postseason hopes alive, they lost two out of three and once again fell two games below .500.
“Some people are paying to watch this team,” Guillen said. “I get paid to watch it. It’s frustrating when you don’t execute.”
Wednesday they executed very little. Even simple tag plays cost them?such as third baseman Joe Crede’s failure to tag Carlos Guillen out at third in the fifth inning despite the throw beating him easily.
That led to a run when Jamie Burke couldn’t hang onto Carlos Lee’s throw to the plate on Ivan Rodriguez’s sacrifice fly. The ball bounced just past Guillen, but went in and out of Burke’s glove.
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“We got beat by tags,” Guillen said. “We don’t make the tag at third base and two plays at the plate we don’t make.”
Little things, but they added up to Detroit taking a 5-1 lead that was just enough to withstand Aaron Rowand’s two-out, three-run home run in the ninth.
“All of a sudden Rowand hits the three-run home run and you’re kicking yourself,” Guillen said. “We don’t do the little things in the first [couple] innings and give up two runs late. We had a chance to win the game.”
Despite having seven hits through four innings, the Sox had just one run.
Juan Uribe singled and stole second with one out in the first and was left stranded. Carl Everett and Burke had back-to-back singles to start the second but they yielded nothing when Crede failed to advance them with a bunt. Lee had a two-out double in the third and was stranded when Paul Konerko was caught looking at strike three to end the inning.
“You just have to go do the job and we didn’t do it,” Guillen said.
The Sox finally pushed a run across in the fourth. Everett again led off the inning with a single and Burke bunted him to second. After Crede flied out, Joe Borchard delivered a two-out single to put the Sox ahead.
The lead lasted about five minutes.
In the Tigers’ half of the fourth, Rondell White singled leading off and went to third on Craig Monroe’s double. After Mark Buehrle struck out Carlos Pena looking, Marcus Thames singled home White and Monroe. Lee’s throw to the plate beat Monroe by plenty, but was off the plate enough for Monroe to beat Burke’s lunging tag.
“Stuff like that is going to happen,” Buehrle said. “I thought the guy was out at home, the call didn’t go our way. You just have to pitch around it.”
The Tigers added to their lead in the fifth and Guillen again came through for Detroit in the seventh with his 20th home run of the season off Cliff Politte. The Tigers added the eventual winning run off Mike Jackson in the eighth on three singles, the last coming with two outs.
Like the failure to get runners over and in early in the game, the bullpen’s inability again to hold the opponent proved costly.
Even the optimistic Sox manager knows it’s close to “play-out-the-string” time.
“I’m realistic, we have to climb a big tree,” Guillen said. “I’m not giving up on the team, but if we continue to play like that, it’s going to be hard.”
Buehrle sounded even more realistic about the situation with 38 games remaining.
“I’m not saying we’re throwing in the towel yet,” he said. “But it’s getting to that point.”