From the Locker Room: Adam Engel dekes his way to a White Sox win
The biggest controversy of the Chicago White Sox win on Monday night — OK, aside from that weird ground-rule double/inside-the-park homer in the ninth — was who came up with the idea to pull the bunt back in the eighth inning, resulting in the RBI single that gave the South Siders the eventual win.
Manager Ricky Renteria fully credited Adam Engel for seeing the "wheel" play in motion (the shortstop shifting over to cover third base on a bunt as the third baseman charges in, second baseman to first in the same manner) and executing a perfect fake bunt and grounder up the middle to bring home Yoán Moncada with the White Sox's second run.
Engel, however, disagreed.
"Before the at-bat, Ricky told me if the middle infielders vacate, pull back and swing and try to hit it up the middle," Engel said postgame. "After the first pitch, I saw the shortstop vacated, and tried to hit a ground ball up the middle."
And no, pulling the back back from a bunt is not something Engel admits to practicing.
I asked Engel, who's certainly had higher exit velocity clouts to win games, how it felt having orchestrated this devious, low-velocity tapper for the victory.
"Any time you help the team win, it feels awesome," he said. "Especially tonight, trying to play a really good brand of baseball, it’s so much fun. Being able to go out there and help the team win is something we all want to do. It felt really good to come through in that situation."
Or, put another way, Engel's overall assessment of the game:
"This is a lot of fun, man."
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Adam Engel video courtesy of the Chicago White Sox.