First Pitch: White Sox at Rangers

Globe Life Field (Ivansevil)

TV: NBC Sports Chicago

Lineups:

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clementatleehammaker

On this day exactly 30 years ago, Esteban Beltre hit his first, and only, career home run. The White Sox defeated the defending World Series champion Minnesota Twins 19-11.

Foulkelore

And 29 years ago, Robin Ventura made a poor decision.

Stebe!

Foulkelore

Robert’s discipline/eye has been good his first two PAs. What if he was having success hitting with blurry vision that is now gone?

itaita

From what was said after he was first put on the DL was that it only bothered him in the field. Which is why he was tearing it up at the plate but looking oddly shaky in the field in Minnesota.

Foulkelore

That should not be a catch.

Foulkelore

And they overturned it. Good.

soxygen

I think the best advice to give to Jose would be “run hard every time.” Maybe someone should tell him that.

Root Cause

Good God. Have you lost your mind man?

I was just about to suggest they wear shorts next year to limit sliding and now this.

Bubba Thompson does not look like I thought he would.

Foulkelore

Great job by Cueto to go cover third.

I love Johnny Cueto.

dwjm3

Cueto is one smart player

Last edited 1 year ago by dwjm3
soxygen

I feel like we deserve Johnny Cueto this year. But it’s an honor to watch the way he plays the game.

Last edited 1 year ago by soxygen
dwjm3

I hope he is back next year. He is so enjoyable to watch.

Nellie Fox

Anyone tired of seeing moncada walking back to the dugout after striking out?

Right Size Wrong Shape

Should he run?

mrridgman

Well, that might be a first in a couple of weeks.

Nellie Fox

He can’t run , have you seen him the last few games

Right Size Wrong Shape

I just saw him make a nice play at third.

Nellie Fox

A nice play? Wow, sign a new contract for it?

Right Size Wrong Shape

You’re not a very likable fellow, are you?

dwjm3

Vaughn is tough to watch in right

OldMMJ87

We have a lot of “outfielders” who are tough to watch

Next year it would be nice to have an actual outfielder play right field.

soxygen

Sounds like you have expensive taste.

Im hoping they spice it up next year and put a failed catcher out there

dwjm3

Bs strike three call on Robert

Right Size Wrong Shape

Been a few of those tonight.

Foulkelore

This ump has made bad calls on inside pitches to righties all night.

Last edited 1 year ago by Foulkelore
Adam

This ump has been terrible. Inconsistent. Seemingly never in our favor. I’ll be curious to see the scorecard cause it feels like our zone is way bigger

Adam

As I said that we just got an outside strike

soxygen

Johnny Cueto is fielding his position tonight. And Yoan’s.

Foulkelore

I’m not convinced he couldn’t get to some of the balls in RF better than Vaughn.

Playing Vaughn out there is absolutely killing us.

metasox

I have only caught bits and pieces of the game. Is that three balls a real outfielder could catch?

OldMMJ87

At least two of them were

Right Size Wrong Shape

I can think of 3 right off the top of my head.

metasox

Even when he catches a ball it is bad

OldMMJ87

I really wish this organization would learn that defense is, ya know, important.

hellotowel

The offense is back in the toilet, I see.

The DH of the future sure isn’t the RF of the present

soxygen

I still hope he’ll be the 1B of the future!

soxygen

In fairness to Vaughn, Pollock was moving fast to his left there and his momentum was taking him to the right field line. I think the only player with a chance of getting that ball to the plate was Vaughn, coming in.

OldMMJ87

In fairness to Vaughn, he’s not an outfielder and has no business being in the outfield but Tony keeps putting him out there and it keeps costing us runs.

Right Size Wrong Shape

For all of my Tony hate, that’s on Hahn. It’s a roster full of DH’s.

Foulkelore

The problem tonight is Robert at DH. Once he’s in CF, Pollock is in RF, and Vaughn can go back to DH. Once they decided to DH Robert, it was either bench a hot hitter (Eloy, Vaughn, Abreu), or play with Eloy and Vaughn in the corners.

metasox

Regardless of anything else, he is supposed to give way to the CF. That could have resulted in an injury

soxygen

Totally. But I think AJ should have realized that there was no way for him to throw the runner on 3rd out because he would almost certainly need to spin and set before throwing, given how hard he was running to his glove side.

But if Pollock isn’t pulling off then Vaughn should yield there.

Last edited 1 year ago by soxygen
Eloytes

So that’s two hits and TBD amount of runs that we’ve yielded this game because we don’t have a right fielder who can play right field (not blaming Andrew for being out of position).

Today the Red Sox released Jackie Bradley Jr. I don’t care if he can’t hit his way out of a paper bag if we can plug him in to stop the hemorrhaging in RF between Vaughn and Sheets.

mrridgman

Engel could do that now, and he hits way better than Bradley.

metasox

Or Pollock in RF with Robert in CF. But they will want to work Sheets in so it is effectively unavoidable that someone will spend time out there who shouldn’t.

Eloytes

Gavin Sheets player value: 0.1 oWAR / -1.2 dWAR
Andrew Vaughn: 1.7 oWAR / -1.7 dWAR

Not that this is news that there’s a black hole in RF.

Foulkelore

It’s nice of Garcia to try to make Vaughn feel better about his RF defense.

OldMMJ87

I don’t love Cueto going back out there

Foulkelore

Wait, Cueto is still out there?

OldMMJ87

I hate it

Nellie Fox

The Sox can not anymore from cueto, the offense needs to show up. This is getting pathetic

Got a piece of Rob Drake alright!

hellotowel

Another pathetic, momentum-killing performance from just about everyone but Cueto. This isn’t going to get it done.

Nellie Fox

Oh well,

a-t

Well, there’s the first game of the series loss outta the way in order to win the rest of the games. Minnesota’s fate is all but sealed by yet another bullpen meltdown, and Cleveland got shut out, so the standings are static.