The White Sox rally in the ninth with one single, but ultimately fall for the sixth time in seven tries, 3-2
Recall a year ago, when the White Sox lost 121 games, the worst in baseball history dating back to 1899? A dim light in all of that darkness was the performance of a pitching staff that did, in fact, keep its head above water, as the bats wilted from Opening Day forward.
Well, this year, there may be some better balance, as both sides of the ball — and, natch, the leaky White Sox D to boot — are witheringly weak.
Rotation lock Jonathan Cannon could not sidestep hard contact vs. a, uh, mediocre? Angels offense, yielding two runs just two outs into his outing. The righty was fooling nobody, and by nobody that counts Travis d’Arnaud, Jorge Soler and Mickey Moniak, no murderer’s row they.
Now, let’s zoom in to check in on both the pitching and defense in the first inning, as Soler CLUBBED a BP offering to the wall in left, and Corey Julks failed to play the ball smartly off of the wall, then compounded the mistake with a lazy stab at the ball landing past him with his glove as opposed to his bare hand:
Moniak’s double, you’ll see, exposes some writer dramatics because it wasn’t hard-hit at all, but that’s just the lack of benefit of doubt 121 losses will get you, White Sox. But defensively, while Michael Tauchman busted his rear to chase this seeing-eye lazy fly down the right-field line and made an aggressive but accurate stab for the one-hop grab, his throw to Baldwin as second-base cutoff short-hopped, inviting unforced error:
Major-leaguers long-toss a couple hundred feet to warm up, but can’t line-drive an infield throw with runners on, or if rainbowed at least rainbowing it to the infielder on the fly and in a receiving stance?
It was a cleaner second for Cannon, yielding just a hit and ending his spring debut at four hits, two earned, one K; no metrics or oversight at Tempe Diablo today, but the guess here if the Angels aren’t fooled the issue is poor movement, velo or a sprinkling of both.
Rotation- (or, maybe, just roster-) wannabe Jared Shuster got just one inning, so enough of that talk of the rotation, kid. Two Ks in his frame, unfortunately sandwiched around an 0-2 Soler no-doubter longball to deep center that was room-serviced to the plate.
Flip side in this game was Chicago’s floppy bats. Counting some of this game (please, you want me to check back postgame to confirm?) the White Sox through six-plus games are dead last in hitting (.162) 33 POINTS lower than No. 29 in baseball, last in OBP (.275, trailing by 19) and hellfire yeah, melvin, last in slugging as well (.293, 33) for the IMPOTENCE TRIFECTA.
As if reading their own clips, the Sox mustered just two singles in the first four frames before arising from slumber with a walk-single-single combo to bring home Chicago’s first run, and 16th in seven games. Still, then, even in the flurry comes a flub: On Brooks Baldiwin’s RBI ground ball that trickled through to left, Dominic Fletcher was gunned down at third base WITH THE PLAY RIGHT IN FRONT OF HIM.
I mean!
Andrew Vaughn then pushed a grounder to second base for a “productive out,” but with two dead and Baldwin on third, Tauchman grounded out to first.
In the sixth, after Pale Hose reliever Tyler Gilbert spent two innings keeping the Angels parched and scoreless, another bushfire of offense was lit, as the unlikely tag-team of Miguel Vargas and Joey Gallo set the table with two straight singles. You can choose your own adventure here, as the White Sox met that set table with two straight Ks (Julks and Matt Thaiss). The grindy and patient Chase Meidroth then worked a walk to pack the sacks, but for naught: Zach DeLoach (in for Fletcher, who we can imagine being sent to the showers to think about making the first out of a rally inning at third base but in reality, it was likely his sub-out time anyhow) grounded out and the White Sox run output for the day stalled at 1.
In fact, the offense left for Glendale before the game even got finished, as the Angels set seven straight down entering the ninth. There, a mini-rally of Angels misplays (single-error-fielder’s choice-wild pitch-sac fly-walk-wild pitch) trimmed the deficit to 3-2 and left ducks on the pond with one at-bat remaining.
Heroism called for Wilfred Veras, but the young slugger did not pick up the phone, with a fly out to left that rendered the game more exciting than anticipated for nine full frames, but ultimately decarbonated our thirst for refreshment.
The Good Guys ended with a scintillating seven singles for an empty win of 7-5, hits, but 3-2, runs. Unfortunately for the Chicago 9, games are still determined by runs.