Sweep!!!

[Special_K19]

Good Golly YES!!! The Tribe climbed back into the Central race by sweeping the White Sox to be tied at second in the division. They are no sitting at .500 with a three game series against Minnesota coming up. Chris Magruder continued his outstanding play by with a homer and three RBIs in the game.

[Hurricane Floyd]

CLEVELAND -- The White Sox had a losing streak to think about Sunday, and the Indians had a winning streak on their minds.
Nothing changed after Sunday's game.

For with their 4-3 win, the Indians pushed the White Sox losing streak to seven straight and extended their modest winning streak to four in front of 37,760 fans.

On a cool afternoon, the Indians road the strong arm of veteran Chuck Finley and timely hitting of rookie Chris Magruder to their first sweep of the White Sox at The Jake since September 1997.

The sweep didn't come easily, though beating the Sox has never been easy for Finley.

He ran into problems in the second when Omar Vizquel's two-out error on Sandy Alomar's grounder loaded the bases and kept alive the inning. But Finley struck out Royce Clayton to get out of that jam.

Finley (4-6) ran into minor trouble when he gave up a two-out double to Carlos Lee in the fourth, but the veteran left-hander worked out of that scoring situation when he got Tony Graffanino on an fly ball to center.

But as well as Finley was pitching, Dan Wright (5-6) was matching him -- pitch for pitch. Wright, too, had shown the ability to get out of jams, working out of a couple of minor problems in the first four innings.

But in the fifth, the Indians got to the Sox right-hander for a pair of runs. Their rally started when Wright walked Bill Selby to open the inning. Einar Diaz then followed with a double.

With runners on second and third, Magruder's sacrifice fly scored Selby and moved Diaz to third. After Matt Lawton grounded out to second, Omar Vizquel's single to right scored Diaz.

The Indians did not score again until the bottom of the seventh. Selby opened that inning, too, with a walk. After Diaz grounded into a force play at second, Magruder hit a home run into the Pepsi Plaza in left field off reliever Damaso Marte, who'd come on to replace Wright after Diaz's force out.

That was a lot of insurance to give Finley and the Tribe, though reliever Paul Shuey gave the Sox some hope when he pitched in and out of trouble in the eighth.

But with the bases loaded, Shuey got Paul Konerko to ground out to third to end that threat.

The White Sox staged a final rally in the ninth off Bob Wickman, scoring twice to cut the Tribe's lead to one run. But with the tying run at second in the person of Kenny Lofton, the Cleveland closer retired Frank Thomas on a line drive to second base to end the game and ensure the struggling White Sox would leave Cleveland with their seventh loss in a row.



Source: indians.mlb.com