After pitching a perfect game last weekend, Chicago starter Philip Humber was given a sharp dose of reality in front of his home fans on Thursday as Kevin Youkilis smashed a grand slam to power Boston to a 10-3 win over the White Sox.
Back on the mound for the first time since tossing just the 21st perfect game in the major leagues on Saturday, Humber (1-1) was far from perfect against Boston, giving up nine runs on eight hits over five shaky innings at U.S. Cellular Field.
"��This game will humble you," Humber told reporters. ��"It will make you feel good one day and make you feel bad the next.
"You've got to take every game as its own game and Saturday was one game and tonight was one game.
"I'm going to keep working and battling and hopefully next time will be better."
If Humber harboured any dreams of back-to-back perfect outings they were squashed quickly as the right-hander walked Mike Aviles to open the game before serving up a one-out single to Dustin Pedroia and an RBI double to Adrian Gonzalez.
David Ortiz singled to left centre to push across another run and give Boston the early 2-0 lead.
Chicago pulled a run back in the bottom of the first but the Red Sox answered with a five-run burst in the third, Youkilis doing the major damage by sending a Humber pitch over the wall in right for his second career grand slam.
Jarrod Saltalamacchia cracked a solo homer to extend the lead to 7-1 in the third and also had a two-run blast in the fifth.
"��We know we were going to have to battle from the beginning, and that's something we had a meeting about," Saltalamacchia said. "��We were going to go up and not give at-bats away and just have that good approach."
Boston's Felix Doubront (1-0) took the win, yielding three runs on five hits in six solid innings.
(Reporting by Steve Keating; Editing by Peter Rutherford/Patrick Johnston)
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