Delmon Young's Strange Debut

The last time we saw Delmon Young he was busy throwing his bat at an umpire in the minors.

Tuesday night, Young was in Chicago making his Major League debut.

In the bottom of the first inning, after Rays' starter Casey Fossum walked both Scott Podsednik and Tadahito Iguchi, Jermaine Dye sent a fly ball deep to right field. Delmon drifted back to the fence, got there in plenty of time, and then seemingly forgot to jump and catch the ball. Instead, the ball landed right on top of the fence and bounced over for a three-run homer, Dye's 39th of the season.

In the top of the second inning Young came to the plate for his first Major League at bat greeted by a chorus of boos.

The very first pitch he saw drilled him in the left arm.

The crowd cheered.

Whether Garcia did it intentionally or not, there's one thing that pitch accomplished: it got Garcia on the umpire's good side. I thought I noticed that Freddy had a strike zone a little bit larger than the Devil Rays got for the rest of the evening.

"Now in the future we will handle our own problems and we don't want anybody else to think they need to discipline us. For me, I want the word out that's the last time it should happen. It's over for him. It's obvious what [the White Sox] did. Nobody else needs to discipline us, we'll take care of that ourselves."
-Tampa Bay manager Joe Maddon

I have a feeling it won't be the last time.

Young did get his first career hit in the 6th inning off Garcia, a two-run homer that got out of the park in a hurry. It closed the White Sox lead to 7-5.

And in the 8th inning the Rays retaliated by beaning A.J. Pierzynski.

Who didn't see that coming?

Maybe Joe Maddon should heed his own advice about Young when it comes to Pierzynski. I've never seen a guy hated so much for absolutely nothing.

The White Sox would get the last laugh, though, when Pierzynski came around to score on a Ross Gload double that made the score 12-9.

Bobby Jenks would come on to pitch a perfect 9th inning and tally his Major League-leading 37th save of the season. The sloppy victory (the Sox had a 7-0 lead after 2 innings) moved the White Sox back into the wild card lead as the Twins were shutout 2-0 at home against Kansas City. The Sox also gained a half game on the Tigers, whose date with the Yankees was rained out.