2020 OOTP sim: Sean Murphy defeats Chisox
CHICAGO — New corner infielder Kevin Padlo, acquired out of the Tampa Bay Rays system, made his major league debut on Saturday, the latest in a succession of such splashes in Chicago.
Naturally, given the White Sox's flaccid offense, Padlo batted cleanup.
And the kid had himself a day, singling on an 0-2 count in his first major league at-bat and ending with a 2-for-4 day.
It was somewhat of a lesser success for the other eight members of the White Sox lineup, as the Good Guys dropped another to the A's, 7-4.
It was a hard start for Reynaldo López and his fourth-best in the AL ERA, who saw ace arm Luis Torrens field Marcus Semien's leadoff squibber in front of the plate and throw it past Padlo at first. Semien moved to third on a ground out, then scored on a wild pitch.
In the second, Stephen Piscotty walked but was cut down by Torrens on a steal attempt — his third out in three tries.
Unfortunately, Sean Murphy then clocked a López fastball 445 feet out to left-center to double Oakland's lead. In the fourth, Murphy duplicated the effort — same result, same distance (OK, two feet shorter), lead increased to 3-0.
As happened around this time in the series opener on Friday, the White Sox rumbled a bit of a rally to start the sixth (Luis Basabe single, Keith Curcio walk), but those ducks were squandered with a Yoán Moncada K, Eloy Jiménez fly out and Edwin Encarnación groundout.
Although the White Sox did little to inspire confidence offensively, the arms, collectively leading the AL in ERA, were again phenomenal. López gave up two homers but nudged his ERA down .02 to 3.17. Aaron Bummer was very solid, and Alex Colomé, finishing up the game, was superb: 1 ⅔ innings, two Ks, and an ERA down to 0.39.
And the game ended with the smallest of victories, as Encarnación singled with one out in the ninth to deny Oakland's Sean Manaea a complete game. After Padlo singled for his second hit of his debut, Yasmani Grandal came on to pinch-hit, and true to his truly awful White Sox season, grounded into a game-ending double play.
NOTES: Torrens has started his White Sox career perfect in three tries in cutting down base stealers ... Matt Olson had four straight Ks in the game, wearing the golden sombrero ... the White Sox completed another huge trade after the game, reported in our next OOTP story.