White Sox are at .500 this late for the first time since 2012 ... oh, right
Yep, it's the first time the White Sox have been at .500 after a July 25 game since 2012. The 2016 was just one game short, but, hey, this ain't horseshoes. A 10-3 crushing of the Twinkies quite made up for the opening night 10-5 loss.
The Sox evened the season in dramatic fashion, what with five long balls to back up beautiful starting pitching by Dallas Keuchel. Well, only long balls in the terminology sense, because two of them were plenty long while the other three were the product of MLB's suicidal tendencies and Ocean Spray.
Leury García split the type, with one cheapo and one blast - yes, that Leury García. Edwin Encarnación smashed one so far and hard Statcast couldn't measure the exit velocity and Gameday couldn't measure the distance. Meanwhile James McCann and Eloy Jiménez owed their round-trippers to their friends at Minute Maid.
But no complaining here, especially because the Sox once again pulled off an offensive miracle, following up on Friday's three walks with four more. Even Tim Anderson walked once!
Yes, truly — we would not toy with your emotions — four walks! By the White Sox!
The walking wasn't easy, either, as plate umpire Pat Hoberg had a strike zone the size of Australia, at least for the starters. Hoberg apparently wanted a nice fast game after the opener dragged on forever, but the strategy didn't work — 3:17 was all he could whittle the game down to.
The White Sox did whiff a more normal 11 times, but one step at a time, friends. They looked like Waring Blenders at times.
Speaking of juice-making machines (they don't call me the master of the segue for nothing), it does seem that MLB has done nothing to get the baseball back to where these contests will be actual baseball games and not just home run derbies.
Sure, small sample size, not necessarily backed up across the leagues because the best pitchers are going off the start, but those balls were flying much farther than would seem possible with normal oomph from the device doing the flying. So it behooves us to try to come up with a wide array of terms with which to describe the phenomenon, as we appear stuck with it until either MLB learns a lesson or two or the sport just dies from fan boredom.
Major source of juice
Secondary source.
Permit me to suggest, for starters:
Egbert Sousé
- The ball's more juiced than W.C. Fields' Egbert Sousé.
- The ball's got more juice than a ComEd plant on a 90 degree day.
- The ball's got more juice than a cheap brunch mimosa.
- More juice than a loan from Three Fingers Louie.
- So much juice the FDA requires it to have a nutrition label.
- So much juice it contains your recommended daily allowance of Vitamin C.
- So much juice China's come up with a fake Minute Maid label for it.
- More juice than a '67 GTO.
It's livelier than ...
No, better put off the "livelier than's" for another day. There's bound to be an occasion for it.
Besides, when it's your team that benefits, juice is good for you.