Chicago Whiter Sox: Poor defensive first inning leads to loss
A poor defensive first inning led to a big loss to the Minnesota Twins for the Chicago White Sox.
There has been a lot of hype with this Chicago White Sox season. Their rebuild looks to be coming to an end based on their roster but the Minnesota Twins humbled them quickly. They still have an extremely bright future and game one of the season doesn’t change that but they quickly were shown how hard it is to win. This Twins team won 100 games in 2019 and has the pedigree to be very good again in 2020.
It wasn’t a good start for Lucas Giolito. His defense didn’t help him out but his stuff wasn’t what we can expect. He also gave up two home runs to Max Kepler which allowed them to have such an early lead. We know that Giolito has the potential to be one of the best pitchers in the game but he needs to come out strong next week.
The Twins have a 5-1 lead before Yoan Moncada led a big comeback to tie the game at five. After that, Minnesota took a big five-run lead again and held it to win the game 10-5. It wasn’t a great way to start the season for a team with such high expectations but they have 59 other chances to make it right.
It was awesome to see some of their offensive stars put on a show but it wasn’t enough. Yoan Moncada, Eloy Jimenez, Luis Robert, and Tim Anderson all made an impact in their first games of the season but their defense wasn’t good enough. They weren’t able to make a lot of plays that should be made and it led to a big loss.
Most of the defensive mistakes that were costly came in the first inning. That allowed the Twins to extend innings and then have a 4-0 lead before the White Sox ever even came to bat. It is fair to say that if they work on these things and get them right, they should have a much better chance to defeat a team like the Minnesota Twins who can really hit the ball hard.
One thing that stood out on defense was the play of Leury Garcia. He was the starting second baseman because they have Nick Madrigal in Schaumburg to start the year. He is a great utility guy but this game proved that it might be worth it to bring Madrigal up and worry about his seventh year of control later. He might have made this game go a little more smoothly with some of these plays at second base. This is a kid who can play some gold glove level second base so maybe they think about calling him up early to replace Garcia.
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Even in a 60 game season where the games mean so much more, the White Sox are going to have a chance to come out and redeem themselves later. Dallas Keuchel is going to take the mound in his White Sox debut against the Twins. This is a big game for the White Sox to try and avoid starting the season 0-2.