2020 OOTP sim: Anchor leg kicks White Sox past Trashcans
HOUSTON — For the second straight game, a Chicago White Sox ace didn't pitch like one. But this time, the results still tilted in the Good Guys' favor, a 9-7 win over Houston.
Lucas Giolito threw the opener of a three game in Houston entering at 3-0, with a 1.85 ERA. The ace getting a little roughed up (five earned on eight hits in 5 ⅔ innings for a 36 game score) ended up mattering not.
On the first pitch to the second batter of the game, Eloy Jiménez went 411 to left field to give the White Sox a 1-0 lead. Houston tied, and then Yoán Moncada, a strikeout victim in the first, gave Chicago a second lead with a homer to right — and tying Eloy back up for the team homer lead, at 17.
The Astros tied it right back up in their half. But at the midway point of the game, things started to get really fun.
In the White Sox fifth, Nick Madrigal, Luis Robert and Moncada all singled to load the bases, and the White Sox re-took the lead on a ... balk! Edwin Encarnación must have winked at the right time, forcing a stagger on the mound and bringing in a run. Adding insult, EE then base-tapped two more runs in, giving the White Sox a 5-2 lead.
But true to form, the Astros rushed right back and tied it up, courtesy of a Kyle Tucker dinger and red-hot George Springer knocking in two with a double. At 5-5, Giolito whiffed ex-batterymate James McCann to staunch the bleeding.
The final push for the Chicagos came in the eighth. Zack Collins drew a leadoff walk, Tim Anderson pinch-running. Nomar Mazara deftly sac-bunted against the shift, which turned a willing out into an easy base hit. Then Leury García, in an extended slump for the first time this season, sacrificed himself with a bunt, putting ducks on the pond.
From there, yes, it was a third bunt — a suicide squeeze from ol' reliable Madrigal — that would give the White Sox a lead they would not relinquish. The mini-mite so expertly executed the squeeze that he beat out the hit, scoring after a Robert walk and Moncada two-run double. Later in the inning, with two outs, Encarnación continued his positively strange day at the plate by walking in an important insurance run.
When the infield dust settled, it was 9-5, White Sox.
Things got hairy in the ninth, as Pat Venditte, getting right back out after a short and rough outing on Thursday in Chicago and rescuing Aaron Bummer's madcap, walk-filled seventh, loaded the bases in the eighth. Evan Marshall provided the minor-damage pick-me-up: Ks bookending a Springer RBI single and a deep sac fly from José Altuve. But when Carlos Correa flailed at three straight strikes, the underdog win was complete.
Saturday sees Michael Kopech out on the mound to try to secure the series. Ashley Sanders will have the call for you here.
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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