• Preview
• Recap
• Bleachers

Crede leads White Sox past Indians

Apr 3, 2008 - 8:21 PM By Todd Krepop PA SportsTicker Contributing Writer

CLEVELAND (Ticker) -- Joe Crede hit a go-ahead solo home run in the eighth inning Thursday to lead the Chicago White Sox to a 2-1 victory over the Cleveland Indians.

Crede's first blast of the season off starter Jake Westbrook (0-1) broke a 1-1 tie, and the Chicago bullpen made it hold up.

"It's always good when you help your team win," Crede said. "It was big to come out and win a game against (Cleveland)."

White Sox starter John Danks did not get a decision, but was sharp in his season debut. The lefthander, who did not allow a hit until the sixth inning, yielded a run, two hits and two walks while striking out two in 6 2/3 innings.

"I'll take 10 out of 10 no decisions as long as there are no losses in there," Danks said. "The wins will come."

Danks spent the offseason and spring training working on a cutter that paid immediate dividends. The young lefthander used that cutter to keep the Indians - who had scored 17 runs in the first two games - off balance.

"It helped a ton," Danks said. "You could tell (Cleveland) was protecting the inner half of the plate, which opened the outer half. That produced a lot of ground balls, which was the reason we were working on it."

Scott Linebrink and Octavio Dotel (1-1) bridged the way to closer Bobby Jenks, who pitched a perfect ninth for the save.

On the heels of Juan Uribe's home run in the sixth, Danks was pitching with a 1-0 lead in the seventh when Cleveland finally got on the board.

Danks walked Travis Hafner on four pitches with one out, and Ryan Garko followed with an RBI double over the outstretched glove of right fielder Jermaine Dye.

Up until that point, the Indians offense was clueless against Danks, who finished last season 0-6 with a 7.84 ERA in his last seven starts.

"He did a good job of mixing his pitches," Garko said. "His cutter was a better than it was last year. It is a new a pitch for him rather than the curveball."

Cleveland had a chance to take its first lead of the game moments later, as Dye and center fielder Nick Swisher botched a fly ball, allowing runners to reach second and third.

But Danks induced a groundout by Asdrubal Cabrera, and Dotel came in to end the threat by getting Casey Blake to fly out.

"We didn't have many opportunities and the few chances we had, we didn't take advantage of them," Indians manager Eric Wedge said.

Westbrook, who didn't allow a run in 18 innings in spring training, matched Danks pitch-for-pitch until giving up the home run to Uribe to start the sixth.

The veteran righthander allowed just the two runs and six hits while striking out three in 7 1/3 innings, as Cleveland failed to start 3-0 for the first time since 1998.

"I made two mistakes and that was the difference in the game," Westbrook said. "I knew after the first time through the order it was going to be this kind of game. Their pitchers did a good job and we came up on the short end."