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Dye homers twice in return to lineup to lift White Sox over Angels

Apr 28, 2007 - 6:02 AM CHICAGO (Ticker) -- The return of one star and the return to form of another led the Chicago White Sox over the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim.

Jermaine Dye homered twice and Jose Contreras cooled the hot bats of the Angels to lead the White Sox to a 7-3 win.

Dye hit solo blasts in the fourth and the seventh innings. Chicago's right fielder had sat out the past two games with a lower back injury, but showed no ill effects against Anaheim.

"I had a couple of good swings," Dye said. "It was a good win for us offensively. We can't just have one guy doing it. We got solid pitching tonight from Contreras."

Contreras (2-2) earned the win with 6 1/3 solid innings. Chicago's ace has been maddeningly inconsistent this season, sandwiching a pair of solid outings between two poor starts entering his start here.

"Contreras did what he had to to keep them in the game," Angels manager Mike Scioscia said.

"I felt really good," Jose Contreras said through an interpreter. "We won today because of the defense"

The Cuban righthander pitched five scoreless innings before running into trouble in the top of the sixth. After a quick first out, Orlando Cabrera and Vladimir Guerrero hit back-to-back singles. Garret Anderson followed with a single to score Cabrera and Casey Kotchman homered to make the score 4-3.

That was as close as Anaheim would get, however, as four relievers combined to throw 2 2/3 scoreless innings for the White Sox.

The Angels came in as one of the hottest teams in the league - having scored 55 runs in their past seven games - and winning six of seven entering their series with the White Sox.

A.J. Pierzynski hit a solo shot in the third and Darin Erstad had two hits, two runs and an RBI in his first game against his old team. Erstad played the first 11 years of his career with Anaheim.

"You don't win without defense consistently," White Sox outfielder Darin Erstad said. "We got a very good defense and we showed it tonight."

Angels starter Ervin Santana (2-3) struggled on the road yet again. The 24-year-old righthander allowed four runs while walking six in 5 2/3 innings to take the loss. Santana has now lost all three of his starts on the road this season, yielding 15 earned runs in 14 total innings.

"His ability to locate the fastball and put guys away wasn't there," Scioscia said.

Jim Thome, who had sat out the past three games with a right rib cage injury, tried to play against the Angels but left after fouling off a pitch in the first inning. Alex Cintron replaced him in the lineup.