White Sox Claim Walk-Off Victory over Rangers
The Texas Rangers lost to the Chicago White Sox, 5-4, on Saturday in Glendale. Here’s a breakdown of the game.
White Sox 5, Rangers 4
How the Rangers Lost: The Rangers tied the game in the top of the ninth with a home run by top prospect Luisangel Acuña, but in the bottom half the White Sox got to another highly-regarded Rangers pitching prospect, Antoine Kelly, for a walk-off victory.
Records: Chicago White Sox, 5-3; Texas, 5-5.
Winning pitcher: Andrew Perez (CWS, 1-0).
Losing pitcher: Antoine Kelly (TEX, 0-1).
Rangers at the plate: The Rangers only had eight hits on Saturday, and two players had two each — Corey Seager and Eiler Hernandez, the latter a late start in place of Bubba Thompson, who was scratched due to leg tightness. Seager drove in a run. So did Josh Smith, who went 1-for-2, and Josh Jung, who drove in the run on a sacrifice fly.
Acuña’s home run gave the Rangers some life, with them down 4-3 in the top of the ninth. The two-out home run, off Perez, was one of Acuña’s best moments of the spring so far.
Rangers on the mound: Martín Pérez pitched in his final start before the World Baseball Classic and went three innings, giving up four hits, two runs (one earned) while striking out three. He walked none. He did give up a home run to former teammate Elvis Andrus in the first inning.
He handed the ball off to the bullpen and, for a while, it cruised. Jacob Barnes threw a scoreless fourth and Joe Barlow threw a scoreless fifth (though he had to evade two walks and a hit). Yerry Rodriguez gave up a one-run lead in the sixth, allowing two hits, two runs and two walks while striking out one before he was relieved by Chase Lee with two out in the sixth.
Lee calmed the fire down, throwing 1 1/3 innings of scoreless relief before turning the ball over to Reyes Moronta in the eight, who threw another scoreless inning, giving up a hit and striking out one.
With the game tied at 4-4, Antoine Kelly came on in relief. Chicago’s Erik Gonzalez drew a one-out walk, followed by a Victor Reyes walk. Jake Burger grounded out on a fielder’s choice but moved the runners 90 feet. Bryan Ramos’ walk-off single back to Kelly ended up scoring Gonzalez. Kelly gave up a hit and two walks in the loss.
From the Park
Some tweets from Saturday’s game, from our Alex Plinck, who is in Surprise:
Hey did you hear the one about Jacob deGrom pitching a bullpen today?:
The White Sox had a little case of ‘Former Rangers Syndrome’:
You can find Matthew Postins on Twitter @PostinsPostcard
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