White Sox Lose 6-4 Amidst Rios Trade Rumors

Tonight was a rather routine 6-4 loss to a better team. Tim Hudson was on the mound for the Braves inducing groundballs as he is wont to do. The White Sox actually touched him up for 8 hits and 2 walks, but unfortunately only two of them were for extra bases, and they were offset by two double plays. John Danks would continue to post a pretty strikeout-to-walk ratio (4:0 tonight), but also surrender home runs at a prodigious rate. He gave up another two dingers tonight, the first to Andrelton Simmons and the second to Brian McCann. Each of these came with runners on, leaving Danks with 7 innings and 5 earned runs.

The Braves would tack on another run off of Nate Jones in the 9th.

The big story of the night, however, was that Alex Rios was pulled for Casper Wells in the 7th inning. Given the current circumstances, Twitter immediately started watching closely and speculating about trades. Apparently Rios was hugging teammates in the dugout, which is a sign that he would be departing. Naysayers tried to offset the rumor by saying that Rios was pulled for failing to run out a double play. If that’s true, then Robin Ventura is has probably made a pretty big mistake, as that’s not something you should do to a player who is being showcased for trades.

The White Sox lost by a score of WAS RIOS TRADED?! (Mike DiNovo-USA TODAY Sports)

There was a brief flurry of hope on Twitter as Alen Hanson – the Top 100 shortstop prospect for the Pirates – was pulled from his A+ game contemporaneously to Rios, but apparently that was a coincidence.

There’s still a shot that news of a Rios trade will break as soon as I post this recap.

Alexei Ramirez would go 3/4 with a double, and Jeff Keppinger had a pair of singles. Josh Phegley wound up hitting three grounders – as one would imagine, Phegley probably hasn’t seen the likes of Tim Hudson’s sinker in the minors.

Update

Robin Ventura announced in the post game press conference that Rios was pulled for a lack of hustle on a double play. On a related note, I am disappointed that one of my favorite players growing up is now erasing those positive memories with his tenure as a manager.