Offensive Exxplosionnnn fuels series split
By James Fegan
Looking back on the schedule, it’s not unprecedented for the White Sox to score five runs in a baseball game. They just did it on Sunday! They even scored six runs in a game last Tuesday (they lost both these games). It’s the two runs in 21 innings that followed that day that inspired me to react to routine singles with faux-delight all night.
After the Matt Harvery poleaxing, the pacing shift of Alejandro De Aza ripping a 2-2 fastball out to right field to lead off the game was not advisable viewing for fans who suffer from heart complications. Yet the event that ripped the game open for the White Sox for their 6-3 win in New York was even more improbable.
The White Sox as a team had a .276 OBP entering Wednesday night. From a macro level, that puts the chances of four-straight hitters reaching at 0.6% And yet, the re-jiggered top of the batting order of De Aza, Alexei Ramirez, Alex Rios and CLEANUP HITTER Conor Gillaspie all reached consecutively, punctuated by Gillaspie poking a bloop double past Mets second basemen Daniel Murphy, who decided to kick the ball away a little bit so that Alex Rios could score as well, capping a three-run inning.
This game was flying success if for no other reason than I got through 200 words of a recap without a mention of Jake Peavy’s back or Jake Peavy’s back going out again or Jake Peavy’s back being nabbed by a osprey and flown off with. He’s over 30 and it could easily tighten up on him after the fact, but for the night, Peavy worked his way through 6.2 innings, allowing his customary single home run and actually damaging his strikeout-to-walk ratio with a 6-to-2 performance.
Drama didn’t enter into the affair at the best possible time–the bullpen had a shaky night during a game where they actually had plenty of margin off error to do so. Matt Thornton couldn’t retire anyone to start the eighth and wasn’t helped by an Alex Rios error on the carom that allowed Ruben Tejada to score. Jesse Crain stepped in and struck out the side but made sure to walk David Wright in the middle to allow the tying run to come to the plate before he did.
Addison Reed achieved the same feat in the ninth, though a massive Alex Rios bomb in the top of the inning prevented Reed’s foibles from coming in a save situation. The tying run came up to the plate, but the tying run was a recent call-up whose stat line included “.200 OBP.”
It was a good night for lineups flipped on their heads in an effort to kickstart the offense. The top four of De Aza, Ramirez, Rios and Gillaspie went 9-19 with two home runs and two doubles, while scoring all six runs. That’s some work.
Team Record: 14-18
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