White Sox 5, Royals 4: Beef beats Boxberger

White Sox win

For a moment it appeared that Welington Castillo had thrown the game away. On a pitchout, Castillo’s throw to second base in an attempt to nail the speedy Billy Hamilton sailed away from Tim Anderson covering the bag. Hamilton scooted to third base and would later score on a sacrifice fly to give the Royals a lead in the seventh inning.

Castillo would redeem himself by delivering the knock-out blow with a two-run homer in the eighth against reliever Brad Boxberger as the White Sox beat the Kansas City Royals, 5-4.

While Castillo is the hero, a lot of credit needs to be given to Anderson who continues to play at a level previously unseen from him. Leading the league in batting average, Anderson went 3-for-4 tonight scoring two runs, flashed the leather by making an amazing over-the-shoulder catch in shallow center field, and making multiple tags at second base that would rival Javier Baez’s ability.

Down 3-0, Anderson started the rally in the fifth inning that required an instant replay to help the Sox. Leading it off with a single, Anderson was almost thrown out at first base by Alex Gordon. Castillo hit a sharp line drive to left that appeared would fall short in front of Gordon, but the multiple Gold Glove winner demonstrated his defensive prowess by making the catch above the turf. Gordon quickly got back on his feet and made a strong throw to first which initially was a called a double play. After review, Anderson had barely beat the throw back to first.

With one out, Daniel Palka walked to move runners to first and second with Yolmer Sanchez at the plate. A grounder to Whit Merrifield at second base sure seemed like it would be a double play as shortstop Adalberto Mondesi made the turn and throw. What appeared to be an inning-ending double play was later reversed thanks to the second challenge. This time it was pretty clear that Sanchez beat the throw, but Anderson didn’t stop running after he rounded third and was deemed to have progressed enough towards home to be awarded a run.

Sanchez would score from first base when Leury Garcia lined a double down the left field line. Down by one run, and a 0-2 count, Yoan Moncada continues to show off his developed approach by hitting a single to right field scoring Garica, and tying the game 3-3.

While the fifth and eighth innings were fun, the first half of tonight’s game was painful to watch as Ervin Santana made his second start with the Sox. Throwing mostly fastball’s at the beginning, Santana lived up in the zone and paid dearly for it allowing home runs to Hunter Dozier and Chris Owings in the second inning.

Then Santana made an adjustment throwing mostly sliders which ended up being the right move. He was able to last five innings allowing six hits (five of them were for extra bases) but only the three runs with three strikeouts to three walks. Manny Banuelos took over for Santana, and other than walking the leadoff hitter in each inning was effective. In three innings, Banuelos didn’t allow a hit and struck out one batter.

Alex Colome took over the ninth, and after walking the leadoff batter just like Banuelos, closed out the game with two strikeouts and weak flare caught by Yolmer Sanchez at second base. Colome earned his fourth save, and the 100th of his career.

Game Notes

  • Anderson’s special night was fitting for Jackie Robinson Day. Prior to tonight’s game, Anderson held a special viewing of “42” with kids part of the White Sox ACE program.
  • Plus, there is the insane level of success Anderson has hitting at home.
  • Daniel Palka remains hitless but he did reach on base three times by walking twice and was hit by pitch.

Record: 6-9 | Box Score | Highlights

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karkovice squad

Ricky fielded a postgame question about whether a longman like Banuelos is a dying breed. He was very diplomatic talking about how yes, they are because of specialization and expanded bullpens; that letting a reliever go 3 innings in a close game requires a lot of feel.

Left unsaid that if he had more than 2 reliable bullpen arms he might not have to pull that shit.

N.B. Banuelos’ results were better lucky than good.

TCBullfrog

Anderson who continues to play at a level previously unseen from him.

Who have we seen this level of play from before?

asinwreck

Sidd Finch?

Jim Margalus

2005 Spring Training Pablo Ozuna.

Yolmer

Good for Timmy. His BABIP is over .500, so he will obviously come down some. I think, like Moncada, he will be an above average player if he just makes more contact. If he puts 5-10% more balls in play, even with an average BABIP, he can really raise his average. With his bat speed and raw power, his power numbers will go up too as he makes more contact.

John SF

and no reason to expect only average BABiP from someone that fast. He obviously will never sustain > 500 babip, no one can. But 350-400 babip isn’t impossible. He’s crazy fast and hits well to all fields.

One thing I’ve noticed this year is that he is swinging for doubles and triples early in the count, and then swinging for homeruns after 1-strike, and then shortening his swing and staying with every breaking pitch after the 2nd strike.

Obviously it’s not that simple, but I really do see three different types of swings. Last year he only had the homerun swing and the protection swing (and the protection swing would go through long phases of looking bad)

John SF

This was undeniably a good game for Palka. Reaching base thrice is good no matter how you do it. And his baserunning replacement was caught stealing, which helps him with the argument of “who is the most useful 25th man bench player” on this team.

But his swings still looked pretty bad. He whiffed some easy fastballs down the middle. He looked helpless on some breaking pitches way out of the zone that he feebly poked at.

IMHO Delmonico was always so much better than him that he should have started in Charlotte anyway. But at this point I’d almost rather call up an (unprecedented?) 9th bullpen arm than keep letting Palka take MLB at bats.

knoxfire30

If the sox can keep playing the royals or the 1/3 roster yanks, I predict good things!

In all seriousness, great game from Tim, the back end of our pen vs the royals will be the tank difference this year.

johnnyg83

More like Soxburger. He has been awful all year for KC. In fact there bullpen has been complete crap. They have had the lead or been within a run in almost all of their losses.