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Thome, Pierzynski help White Sox rally past Twins

Sep 9, 2007 - 12:53 AM CHICAGO (Ticker) -- This time the Chicago White Sox didn't need extra innings.

Jim Thome homered and drove in the key run and A.J. Pierzynski hit a game-tying pinch-hit homer as the White Sox posted an 8-7 come-from-behind victory over the Minnesota Twins on Saturday.

Paul Konerko homered and drove in three runs and rookie Jerry Owens scored twice for Chicago, which rallied to beat Minnesota for the second straight night.

Unlike Friday's game which the White Sox won, 11-10, on a walk-off single by Pierzynski in the bottom of the 13th, Chicago needed just nine innings this time.

After Minnesota took a 7-5 lead on a RBI base hit by Jason Tyner in the fifth and a leadoff homer by Torii Hunter in the sixth, Chicago rallied an inning later.

With one out in the seventh, Juan Uribe hit a double to the center field wall. Two batters later, Pierzynski, batting for Toby Hall, hit the first pitch he saw from reliever Carmen Cali (0-1) over the right field fence to knot the contest at 7-7.

"When pinch hitting, basically I think of three strikes to try to get three real good swings on the ball," Pierzynski said. "Nobody is really expecting me to get a hit, so there's no real pressure to get one. You just want to do well for yourself and try to get a good pitch and hit it out."

After a walk to Owens and a single by Scott Podsednik, Thome lined a base hit up the middle to make it 8-7.

Mike Myers (4-0), the second of four Chicago pitchers, earned the win by hurling two innings of one-hit relief. Mike MacDougal recorded two outs in the eighth before being replaced by Matt Thornton, who struck out Justin Morneau to end the inning. Thornton also pitched a 1-2-3 ninth to collect his second save of the season.

The White Sox had also trailed, 5-2, after three innings, but knotted the score at 5-5 in the fourth on a run-scoring base hit by Owens and a two-run single by Konerko.

Thome and Konerko had given chicago a quick two-run lead in the fist on back-to-back solo homers. It was the 497th career homer for Thome, leaving him three shy of becoming the 23rd man to reach the 500 mark.

"It's something to enjoy, something I try not to get caught up into, but it's getting hard, because I'm getting close." Thome said. "It's really cool to look back at your career and imagine just playing the game."

"It's nice, the way our season's going, to see something real positive." White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen said. "People are excited for Jim and it's a great feeling."

The Twins scored one in the second and four in the third to take a three-run lead.

White Sox starter Jose Contreras surrendered seven runs - four earned - and a season-high 13 hits in five-plus innings.

"When you get behind, you're going to get hit," Guillen said. "We didn't help Jose in the field to get out of some jams. I don't think it was his best game for him, but he kept battling real well."

Matt Garza, who started for Minnesota, wasn't much better, giving up five runs, nine hits and three walks in just four frames.

"Garza battled through four hard innings, but we didn't make pitches, and when you don't make pitches, you don't win games," Twins manager Ron Gardenhire said.

Rookie Brian Buscher hit his second career homer and Hunter went deep as well for the Twins, who suffered their season-high sixth straight loss.