How many sides do you think you could retire immediately afterwards if you took a line drive/ground rule double to your melon? Roughly none? That’s because you’re not White Sox LHP John Danks.
It looked phenomenally ugly. When Steven Drew’s line drive comebacker ricocheted off of the hurler’s head in the fourth inning with enough force to sail into the stands over the Arizona dugout, the gasps were loud. Yet, incredibly, the only dismay registered by the enclobbered Texan on the mound was at giving up the runner. In a queasy couple of minutes, trainer Herm Schneider examined the perky, chuckling lefty and gave him the green light to stay in the game. While that couldn’t have won the good doctor many fans at the National Head Injury Foundation, pending a post-game examination, it turned out to be the right baseball move. Danks returned immediately to midgame form, later gave up two runs and nearly saw the lead fly out of the park courtesy of Melvin Mora. With runners on in the seventh, Danks preserved the lead, aided somehwat, it should be said, by Snakes skipper Kirk Gibson’s decision to send reliver Micah Owings to bat and an easy out with runners on.
Enjoying a dose of that too-elusive commodity called run support, including a Paul Konerko solo bomb and Alex Rios’ 5th dinger bringing in three, Danks cruised to his third victory on the season – and straight to a post-game CT scan. At press time there was no confirming the rumor that Adam Dunn was scheduled next in the medical machinery in a hunt for his missing batting average.