Brewers 8, White Sox 3: A net loss

After three consecutive nail-biters, the tension between the White Sox and Brewers finally broke with comic relief courtesy of Eloy Jiménez.

Maybe you didn’t laugh, but you can’t blame the people who did.

With one out in the fifth and the White Sox leading 2-1, Jiménez furtively pursued Christian Yelich’s fly ball down the left field line. Perhaps he didn’t read the slice on the ball, which was off the end of Yelich’s bat. Perhaps he didn’t want to overpursue it and risk a run-in with the sidewall so soon after getting rattled by the left field fence.

Whatever his process, he came up short of the ball’s landing spot, yet somehow still tumbled into the seats, and he needed some time to untangle himself.

After jogging to first, Yelich raced the other 270 feet for a game-tying inside-the-park homer, which also marked the team’s abandonment of Gio González.

González seemed to have found a groove after minimizing the damage of three troublesome innings to a single run, and had Jiménez handled Yelich’s fly like a normal left fielder, he would’ve been an out away from a respectable five.

Instead, González followed by walking Avisaíl Garcia, then gave up a line-drive homer to Jedd Gyorko that made it a 4-2 lead. That’s on González, but when he got a grounder to short, Leury García fired high, and José Abreu didn’t exactly elevated to grab it. González departed after Omar Narváez’s single. He failed to retire any of the final five batters he faced, even though he did his job on two of them.

Matt Foster came in and allowed one of Gonzalez’s runners to score, capping off a four-run fifth that decided the game.

That said, Zack Collins came about three feet short of making the Brewers work harder for it.

He came to the plate as the tying run with two on, both runners reaching without hitting safely (Yasmani Grandal walk, Nomar Mazara HBP that knocked him out of the game). The inning almost didn’t get to him, because Grandal strayed two-thirds of the way to third on Leury García’s well-struck but eminently catchable line drive to center. Ben Gamel had plenty of time to double him off, but his throw tailed off second and gave the Sox another life.

So Collins came to the plate, and he worked a 3-0 count on Freddy Peralta. Peralta came at him with a fastball, belt-high and inner half. Collins gave it a ride, hitting it hard enough (105.6 mph). It was jjust hit too high (39 degrees), and it fell into the glove of right fielder Mark Mathias, who was snug against the wall. The White Sox have had four such attempts at game-tying homers die on that warning track over the last two games.

The Sox didn’t challenge afterward, and Steve Cishek threw a horrible two-thirds of an eighth inning — two walks, two HBPs, three runs — that put the game out of reach.

Milwaukee pitching bullied White Sox hitters for the second straight night. The Sox were limited to six hits while striking out 14 times. Luis Robert wore the golden sombrero, while Yoán Moncada and Abreu combined for five strikeouts behind him.

Milwaukee starter Josh Lindblom came out firing, striking out the first five he faced. The Sox interrupted him when Mazara muscled a single to right, and Leury García followed by lofting a hanging changeup over the right field wall.

García accounted for all three RBIs, with the third showing up after eight unanswered Milwaukee runs. His bid for a second homer of the game went in and out of Gamel’s glove in center, but it was enough to score Adam Engel, who had reached with two outs in the ninth on a throwing error.

Bullet points:

*Brady Lail made his White Sox debut — and second-ever MLB appearance — and he pitched the final 1⅓ innings without incident, if you don’t mind a couple hits.

*Grandal almost had the second White Sox TOOTBLAN of the night, as Danny Mendick got doubled off first in the third inning on a line drive hit to the second baseman.

*Along with the four strikeouts, Robert made his first defensive misplay of his career when his throw home sailed over the cutoff man on an RBI single and allowed a runner to advance to third with one out. González escaped the inning with no further damage.

*Yelich went 1-for-2 with four walks, although”Jiménez gifted him the “1.” If the White Sox got him hot, at least they won’t have to face him again, unless…

Record: 7-6 | Box score | Statcast

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iowasox1971

I would be very happy if we ended up facing Yelich again this season.

I didn’t quite see the Robert throw home as a defensive misplay. It was a close-enough play at the plate that the Sox challenged it. Steve Stone thought it was an accomplishment to get the play to be that close. He also said that when you are throwing from center field, you often have to get more elevation on the throw to make sure the ball gets over the mound. If the play hadn’t been that close, then I think it would have been a definite mistake to not hit the cut-off man, but this was like a fraction of a second from saving a run.

Obviously, the Eloy mistake was a bad play, but I hope he keeps his head up because he has improved his overall defense this year. The Sox need him to stay in the outfield for at least a few years, because this season we have Encarnacion at DH and in 2021 we might have Abreu, Grandal and Vaughn, along with possibly Mercedes or Collins, getting some at-bats at DH.

A bad game all around for the team, but this was bound to happen after seven well-played ones in a row. Let’s hope we can bounce back against Cleveland.

HallofFrank

On the Robert play, I’d call it a misplay because Yelich was a little slower to the plate than usual, Robert made a near-perfect throw, Grandal made a perfect tag, and they still didn’t get him. When things are executed that well but still don’t work out, it’s usually ill-advised in the first place. So, whether it deserves the title of “misplay” or not, it’s not something Robert should make into a habit.

iowasox1971

So if the same throw had been made a fraction of second sooner and they get him at the plate, would it still have been a misplay?

I do want Robert, much more often than not, to hit the cut-off man. However, there might come a play later this season where we have a chance to get a guy at home on a similar play. Next time, the runner might not be as fast as Yelich or we have the replay challenge go our way. And next time, the run we prevent by such a play could be a very, very important one.

Each outfielder has to make a quick decision on such plays, and I don’t want Robert thinking he shouldn’t ever make a similar type of throw in that type of situation.

joewho112

He accused you too? Small world

iowasox1971

It’s your site. If you want to ignore me, or even ban me, you have the right to do so.

People can have differences of opinion on different topics, even when they basically believe the same things. I won’t go into much detail on that here, but your life situation and mine are very similar, including what our spouses do for a living.

I did not previously respond to your post that responded to my too-strongly-worded post that you reference here, because I didn’t want to further escalate what had become touchy subject on this message board. And I won’t respond further on that particular difference of opinion right now, either.

Let me just say that I am glad we have the opportunity now to debate (or not debate) whether an outfielder on our favorite team should have hit the cut-off man or not in last night’s game. We didn’t have that opportunity several weeks ago.

It’s great that MLB is giving it a try this season. It might work; it might not. It certainly won’t be perfect. But I have enjoyed watching the games so far this summer, and I hope that you have, too.

joewho112

“People can have differences of opinion on different topics”. Opinions like if someone is rooting for a pandemic to kill people? What a fucking asshole

iowasox1971

It appears as if you’re having a really bad day today if you’re using that kind of language while hijacking one poster’s response to another post. I sincerely hope that what happened to you today was not that bad and that you maybe just have some minor anger-management issues.

I have been posting in comment sections for about 20 years, and never once have I used the words “fucking” or “asshole” in a post. You managed to get both of those words in your brief comment. Great job, dude.

If taking out your frustrations on me prevented you from going into a rage elsewhere, such as on the highway or in your home, then I’m glad you did it here rather than in a place where someone really could get hurt.

madridsox

Regarding Robert, are we 100% sure Keith Law wasn’t in attendance last night?

ParisSox

Cleveland – Reds box score. Matt Davidson pitched.

shaggy65

One of the Brewers broadcasters said that Jimenez looked like a giant tuna caught in that net. I found that a pretty apt description.

By my count we’ve played 13 games and had 6 players removed mid-game for injuries (Lopez, Rodon, Anderson, Madrigal, Encarnacion, Mazara). If you add the Jimmy Lambert injury we’re losing more than 1 player for every 2 games. I’ve been pleased with our improved depth so far, but I’m pretty sure we can’t continue at this pace for much longer.

As Cirensica

Steve Cishek looks like a liability. It is starting to worry me. the Sox dispatched Herrera, and I hope Cishek put it together or otherwise he should follow the same path. In 5 appearances, he has allowed a run in 3, but most importantly, he has allowed a lot on inherited runners to score. I wouldn’t pick up his option next year.

Neat_on_the_rocks

As things stand now it goes without saying they will decline his option.

dwjm3

I’m a bit baffled about how Hahn goes about evaluating relief pitchers. Kelvin Herrera was his top relief pitcher signing of the off season last year and he was a complete disaster. He signed Evan Marshall off the scrap heap before last season and he has done quite well. Furthermore, he picks Jimmy Cordero off the scrap heap during the year and he has done quite well here as well.

Fast Forward to this season he signs Cishek who is a compete gas can as well. It just doesn’t make much sense to me. He seems better at picking out pitchers at the flee market than shopping at the nicer stores.

Neat_on_the_rocks

Dont forget guys like Kahnle, Swarzak, and Cedeno. Its extremely impressive the success the team has had dumpster diving Relief Pitchers through the Rebuild years.

vince

I’ve seen enough of Cishek to not want to see any more. Cubs ruined him through overuse.

phillyd

Did Yelich’s ball not bounce off the netting? Was I seeing things?

Neat_on_the_rocks

It did, but apparently at some times, the netting counts as a wall. I dont really understand it either.

Eloytes

Everyone’s talking about Eloy, but nobody’s talking about Renteria leaving in a CLEARLY spent Gio Gonzalez five batters too long (and not even having anyone warming up) after two outings where he showed the inability to handle the lineup the second time through the order. I was screaming at the TV!!

iowasox1971

If I recall correctly, Gio had just pitched a solid fourth inning and appeared to have righted the ship. To that point, he had given up just one run in four innings. There was no reason to have someone warming up when the fifth inning began.