White Sox Fend for Themselves and Deliver

HOUSTON â€”  The Chicago White Sox played on their own Tuesday night.

Just the 25 of them. Just the nine on the field. And Ozzie, and maybe the people in Ozzie’s head who give him the OK to say what he says.

They received no breaks, until they were down to their second-to-last position player, and they had to send him in, almost no choice, and Geoff Blum hit a two-out home run in the 14th inning.

With no intervention, divine or otherwise, nothing falling fortuitously into their laps, and even committing three errors themselves, the White Sox were on their own.

And today they lead the World Series, three games to none, just because of the baseball of it, a 7-5 win that put them, perhaps, a day closer to their first championship since 1917.

At the end of 14 innings and nearly six hours together, the White Sox and Houston Astros were holding each other up. Together, they had sent out 17 pitchers, 26 position players, all those hours of hope and angst that concluded with Blum hopping joyously at second base, having stepped in front of them all, celebrating a save by Game 2 starter Mark Buehrle.

“It means the world right now,� Blum said. “It’s going to mean even more if we close this thing out tomorrow.�

They had stood on their own.

And Ozzie Guillen hugged his children, trudged to his office, and swallowed two Advils. It’s harder this way.

“Thank God he did it at the right time,� he said of Blum, “because I was running out of pitchers.�

The umpires did what they do, turned a fourth-inning double into a Houston Astro home run, generally saw everything else the way it happened, and let the World Series play itself out.

The White Sox had one of their own pitchers come up lame. Just as Bartolo Colon had for the Angels in the last series, and Roger Clemens had for the Astros in this one, Orlando Hernandez walked away with a trainer as his escort.

The Astros committed an error, and it amounted to nothing more than a stranded White Sox baserunner in the sixth. There would be no Tony Graffanino saga at Minute Maid Park.

A.J. Pierzynski kept his mitt out of everyone’s swing path, leading to no assisted double plays.

The commissioner showed up and made the Astros open their roof, but that hardly counted as a break. The White Sox played outdoor baseball for most of the season, and so did the Astros.

Granted, Astro Manager Phil Garner tried to help. He remained true to Mike Lamb, a left-handed hitter who batted .179 against left-handers in the regular season, against more left-handers. And Garner remained sentimentally attached to Jeff Bagwell, sending in Bagwell for a big at-bat in the seventh, when anyone else would have sent Jose Vizcaino to the plate.

Left on their own, the White Sox had themselves an inning and an at-bat.

Just that.

It was impressive. It was shocking. And it became enough, right about the 14th inning.

As it had looked, they needed Pierzynski in the middle of something. They needed Scott Podsednik to hit a ball farther than he’d ever hit one before, or will again.

They could have used a nudge by an umpire, an assist from the conditions, a grounder through the legs of someone reliable.

Left on their own, their bullpen lost a lead in the eighth. Their offense had two hits, both singles, after the fifth inning, and had only four other balls carry as far as the outfield, until the final inning.

So, they sat on five, through the end of regulation, through the 10th. Through the 11th. The 12th. The 13th, by then the most innings played in a World Series game since before they’d last won a World Series, and the 14th, when Blum, a utility infielder in his first postseason at-bat, rapped an Ezequiel Astacio pitch into the bleachers. Another run followed, and then it was a matter of three more outs against an offense that had one hit -- albeit a pretty key double -- after the fourth inning.

Suddenly, the series everyone had expected had broken out, midway through Game 3. Nobody could hit. A walk and a bunt looked like a rally. Outfielders covered the gaps. Infielders made plays. Pitchers finished hitters, who couldn’t check their swings, and couldn’t move runners, and couldn’t find the ball with their bat barrels.

The Astros had their bullpen back. The White Sox pitched with them. After Jason Lane’s fourth-inning home run, the Astros put 14 runners on base, scored one of them, and so left themselves in the position of needing a break.

And the game arrived, finally, on the bat of Blum, at the feet of the White Sox, who made their own break.