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Contreras spoils Colon's return, gets third straight win

Sep 15, 2007 - 4:26 AM CHICAGO (Ticker) -- Jose Contreras certainly has not been at his best this season, but his defense has not helped him much either. On Friday, the tables were turned in his favor.

Contreras won his third straight decision and benefited from two defensive lapses on the same play in the third inning, helping the Chicago White Sox past the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, 5-3.

In this game, however, it was Angels starter Bartolo Colon (6-7) who suffered the consequences of shaky defense in his first start in nearly two months after going on the 15-day disabled list with right elbow irritation on July 24.

"I thought Bart had much better stuff and pitched better than his linescore has shown," Angels manager Mike Scioscia said. "I thought his stuff maintained itself through the whole game. He pitched much better than the fate he had."

Colon surrendered five runs - three earned - and eight hits over 4 2/3 innings in his first start in nearly two months for the Angels, who fell to 59-24 in games in which they score first.

His 5.75 ERA notwithstanding, Contreras (9-16) has been charged with 16 unearned runs over the course of the season - tied with the New York Mets' Oliver Perez for the most in baseball. In the nine outings in which he has been credited with an unearned run or more, the righthander is 1-6.

"(Contreras) is getting better and better everyday," White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen said. "I'm really happy about it, hopefully he continues."

Contreras, who lost seven consecutive starts from June 24-July 31 before being demoted to the bullpen, has went 4-2 since with a 3.52 ERA. He has collected three of those wins over his last four starts in large part due to an offense that has provided him five runs in each of his last four outings.

"I've been healthy the whole year, but the first three months (of the season), I wasn't quite there mentally," Contreras said through an interpreter. "Going to the bullpen helped me a lot - to refocus and rethink - my pitching. I feel stronger, and it's changing - that's how baseball works - ups and downs."

The 35-year-old righthander permitted two runs and 11 hits over 7 1/3 innings. Relievers Mike Myers and Ehren Wassermann recorded the final two outs in the eighth before handing it over in the ninth to closer Bobby Jenks, who worked a perfect ninth to post his 38th save in 44 chances.

Trailing, 1-0, the White Sox pushed across all the runs they needed in a pivotal four-run third when Jermaine Dye put the White Sox in the lead, 2-1, with a two-run single. The next batter, A.J. Pierzynski, hit a seemingly innocent grounder to Maicer Izturis, but the shortstop's throw was short of first baseman Casey Kotchman, who was unable to corral the ball.

"(Izturis) has been playing great defense; it's just that one got away," Scioscia said. "He yanked it into the dirt and Casey couldn't get the short hop on it, and bad things happened after that."

As the ball wondered away from Kotchman, Dye saw the opportunity to score all the way from first and took it, forcing Kotchman to one-hop a throw that catcher Jeff Mathis was unable to handle, handing Chicago a 4-1 advantage.

Garret Anderson had three hits and scored twice for Anaheim, which fell to 37-36 on the road.