2020 OOTP sim: Cease, Sox slay Twins
MINNEAPOLIS — The Twins entered play on Thursday a blistering 34-16 — a 110-win pace.
The White Sox were, well, a little bit worse than that.
But the records were thrown out the window for this series opener, as ace-level Dylan Cease showed up and shut down one of the highest-powered offenses in the game, pacing a 4-2 win.
Despite a beautiful night and the wind gusting out to left field at 15 mph, there were no homers hit in the game; "Bomba Squad," denied. The White Sox used 13 hits in an assembly-line offense, to wear down Minny and bounce nemesis starter José Berríos relatively early.
With the game tied, 1-1, the heart of the order for the White Sox pushed the team forward. In the fourth, Eloy Jiménez doubled, Edwin Encarnación singled, and Yasmani Grandal pushed Eloy home with a deep sacrifice fly to right field. And in the sixth, Eloy and Edwin repeated their feats, only this time a sharp single from Grandal brought Jiménez home and pushed the White Sox lead to 3-1.
New White Sox outfielder Carmen Benedetti had a rough major league debut. Not only did he strike out in his first three plate appearances, he misplayed a ball in left for an error. However, with the slim 3-2 lead and runners at first and second with nobody out, Cease worked out of it with no further damage. Even better, in the next White Sox half, Luis Robert hit a sacrifice fly to swell the lead again to two.
Cease finished with eight innings, two runs, eight hits and just one walk against 10 strikeouts, for a 67 game score. Aaron Bummer came on in the ninth for his fifth save on the season.
And Benedetti? Not only did he execute a nice sacrifice bunt to set up the fourth White Sox run, he caught the fly that was the final out of this White Sox winner. Not beer shower-worthy, but nonetheless ending on a positive note.
The White Sox improved to 24-26 and stand a mere 9 ½ games out of first, behind Minnesota. They'll try to creep closer on Friday, with Dallas Keuchel (2-4, 4.23 ERA) taking on Twins righty Matt Wisler (2-1, 4.74).
NOTES: Tim Anderson was caught stealing today, his first punchout in 14 attempts this season.
Actor (final credit: murdered by Albert Einstein in "Carnage Hall"), musician (Ethnocentric Republicans), and Nerf hoops champion, Wiffleball aficionado and onetime bilingual kindergarten teacher, Brett Ballantini also writes about baseball, basketball and sometimes hockey, for the NBA, MLB, NHL, and Slam, Hoop, Sporting News, the Athletic, SB Nation and others. He was CSN Chicago’s Blackhawks beat writer when their 49-year Stanley Cup drought ended in 2009-10, and took over the White Sox beat after that. He currently is the editor-in-chief of South Side Hit Pen and beat writer for Inside the Rays. He also wrote a book about Ozzie Guillén but is running out of space, so follow him on Twitter @BrettBallantini and he'll probably tell you even more about himself than you ever wanted to know.
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