White Sox edge Royals on Engel HR
Madrigals are polyphonic musical compositions of the Renaissance and Baroque eras, generally sung without accompaniment.. But you already knew that. Five famous ones are:
1. The sweet and merry month of May
2. Adieu, ye city-prisoning towers
3. Ding, dong, merrily on high!
4. The Holly and the Ivy
5. Nick
That last one is at the bottom of the five so far because Nick Madrigal has only played one game for the White Sox and didn't get a hit, though he did get aboard on an error in the seventh, racing to second on a bad throw. Leury García followed with a single and Madrigal was sent home, but got nailed at the plate because it turned out the left fielder — some guy named Alex Gordon — is pretty decent defensively. Who knew?
That didn't matter, though, because a three-run second-inning homer by Adam Engel held up.
The homer was largely thanks to a ball that must have had more cork in it than a Sammy Sosa bat, because the exit velocity was only 95.6 mph, which should have produced a fly to medium left field. The Sox did hit some rockets, all of them outs, topped by Jose Abreu's 108.2 mph shot to third in the first that turned into a double-play ball. So maybe they were owed a super-cheapy dinger to produce all their runs.
While the Sox didn't exactly crush Royals starter Kris Bubic, making his first appearance above the level of Single-A, and didn't touch KC relievers, Dallas Keuchel wasn't his usual self on the mound, getting behind pretty much every batter. But he overcame those problems to just give up two runs. Keuchel got out of a couple of jams thanks to the Sox MVP of the game, Royals third baseman Maikel Franco, who left seven men on base with a fly out, pop out and K, ending three innings in the process.
The bullpen did its usual fine job, the only difficulty when Jimmy Cordero had two men on in the seventh, but, thankfully, Franco was up next, so that was that.
Alex Colomé did get some nice help from José Abreu in the ninth.
Of note, the Sox drew two walks and only struck out seven times, so they improved their BB/K ratio for the season (and for recent years), while KC had one walk and seven K's, which is right on their miserable norm.
James McCann got hit by Bubic twice, the first time right on the helmet, but appeared none the worse for wear, what with being a catcher and all. However, Tim Anderson, who had two hits but a rough day in the field, left the game for a pinch hitter due to hip soreness, first from a play to his left in the second, and more significantly after stepping right on the edge of the grass while trying to make a play behind second base in the third.
The Sox are now 3-4 on the season. Game two of the series will be 6:05 CT Saturday, with Gio González making his first start for the White Sox, against Ronald Bolanos, who lasted two innings against Cleveland in his previous start.