CHICAGO -- Jim Thome was excited to get back in the batter's box, but he knew he might have trouble once he left it.
With a strained left hamstring keeping him out of the last five games, Thome returned to the White Sox lineup on Wednesday and came up with the game-winning single in the eighth inning of Chicago's 5-4 victory over the Devil Rays.
But Thome's pregame fears were quickly realized, however, as he slightly re-aggravated the injury coming out of the box and he was replaced by a pinch-runner. He will sit out Thursday's afternoon series finale with Tampa Bay. The tweak was a slight one, he said.
"If I had to rate them, I'd say Detroit was an eight and this would be about a three," Thome said, referring to his initial strain last Thursday. "It's not enough to cause any problems, but definitely, I think when I came out of the box in that big situation, you forget what you have and it's unfortunate. You're going to go through it. It's part of having this injury. You're going to have your ups and downs with it."
While Thome's hit won the game, it was Jermaine Dye and Tadahito Iguchi who set it up and helped the White Sox win their third straight game to extend their American League Wild Card lead to 1 1/2 games over Minnesota and stay within 4 1/2 games of the AL Central-leading Tigers.
Iguchi's two-run homer off Brian Meadows (2-5) earlier in the eighth tied the game at 4, and Dye scored the winning run after singling and stealing second. He also singled, stole second and scored on an error by Jorge Cantu on A.J. Pierzynski's grounder in the seventh to make it 4-2.
Dye's heroics made White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen look prophetic. He decided to leave Dye in the three-hole even with Thome's return, because the quicker Dye would have a better chance to score on hits by Thome and Konerko.
"Jermaine can run," Konerko said. "All night it looked like we made some lineup changes [for nothing]. We weren't doing anything all night. As a matter of fact, we were blowing opportunity after opportunity. Jermaine's not going to steal a bunch of bases, but if you don't pay attention to him, he'll get them in a heartbeat."
Dye went 3-for-5 to boost his team-high average to .327. He hit third for the sixth straight game, and it doesn't look like he'll be moving anytime soon. He went on his own in the seventh, but Guillen told him to look to run in the eighth.
"I'm in a position in the order now where I've got to make things happen and get on for guys behind me and do whatever I can to get across the plate to score runs to help us win," Dye said.
Iguchi was scuffling coming into the eighth, with just two hits in his last 23 at-bats. But his hit kept things going, and half of his 14 homers have now come in the seventh inning or later.
Dye also helped make the game-ending double play when he caught Rocco Baldelli's deep fly ball. He threw to Konerko at first as Ben Zobrist raced back from second, but Zobrist had made a move toward third while tagging at second and didn't retouch the bag for a second time as he went back to first. At Pierzynski's urging, Konerko threw to Juan Uribe at the empty second base bag for the 9-3-6 double play. The Devil Rays had been sloppy all game, committing three errors.
"Everyone was jumping around in the dugout and everyone was watching that play," Guillen said. "All the coaches and all the players noticed it."
Jon Garland (16-4) pitched eight innings to tie Toronto's Roy Halladay for the Major League lead in victories. He put the Sox in a 3-0 hole in the first, giving up a leadoff homer to Baldelli along with three more hits and a hit batsman. The D-Rays led, 4-0, after Cantu tripled and scored from third on Delmon Young's sac fly in the fourth.
"First inning, everything was up," Garland said. "They had a game plan. I think my last start I threw 90 fastballs out of 100-something [pitches]. They had a game plan and they stuck with it. If you leave a ball up in this league, you're going to get hit."
Bobby Jenks got his 38th save, pitching the ninth.
Scott Podsednik had a miserable day, going 0-for-5 with four strikeouts, stranding six runners. His last strikeout came just before Iguchi's heroics in the eighth on a disputed foul tip catch by Devil Rays catcher Josh Paul, of last year's American League Championship Series infamy. Home plate umpire Tony Randazzo initially ruled that Paul dropped it, but reversed the call after an umpire meeting. Guillen came out to briefly argue.
"I knew he caught it, but I have a job to do," Guillen said.
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