It took 82 games for Will Venable to play a first baseman in the outfield, and the baseball gods wasted little time finding him.
Ryan Noda's ill-fated diving attempt on Patrick Bailey's looping line drive in the sixth inning turned what would've been a bases-loading single into a two-run triple that gave the Giants the lead, and the vaunted Giants bullpen carried it the rest of the way, allowing just a walk over the final 3⅔ innings.
"Probably have to play that in front," Venable said. "Good aggressive play, you like the thought. Just as a play, you play in front and minimize the damage."
There's a chance that the sixth inning would've been decisive even if Noda took the conservative route, because the Giants already gained an extra out when Christian Koss' grounder up the middle hit second base and bounced over Lenyn Sosa, who was in position to get the force at second, if not the double play. Perhaps a bases-loaded, one-out situation against Tyler Alexander nets the go-ahead run no matter what.
Then again, both teams spent the first half of the game failing to convert such opportunities. The Giants were able to pounce on Aaron Civale's control collapse when Wilmer Flores hammered a hanging curve inside third base for an RBI double that tied the game at 1, but despite Civale walking a third batter of the inning to load the bases afterward, the Giants couldn't make him pay a steeper price.
The White Sox came away empty-handed from even juicier opportunities against Landen Roupp. They loaded the bases with one out in the fourth after Kyle Teel and Sosa singled, Noda bunted them over, and Josh Rojas filled first with a walk, but all of those 90-feet actions extended the inning to ninth-hitting Michael A. Taylor, who grounded into a 6-4-3 double play on the first pitch.
An inning later, Roupp put two on with one out by plunking Chase Meidroth and walking Andrew Benintendi, after which Willy Adames committed a second miscue at short when he boxed the ball during his attempt to get the lead runner. Curious scoring resulted in a single for Miguel Vargas, but Teel missed a chance for a sac fly on an outer-half sinker before flailing at a changeup for strike three, and Sosa popped out to end the inning.
"It’s very frustrating," Vargas said of the wasted chances. "It was a tough one facing this guy. I’ve never faced this guy. I think we [went] out there and compete. Just men in scoring position, we couldn’t drive the run in. That’s something we need to be better at."
(The White Sox tried to coax a balk out of a Roupp flinch during Sosa's plate appearance, but home plate umpire Jacob Metz signaled to stop Roupp from starting his delivery because he didn't allow Sosa to get set.)
Vargas' "hit" was the only one for the White Sox in nine at-bats with runners in scoring position, and they needed similar assistance to score their only run in the first. Meidroth and Benintendi singled with one out, and then Vargas smoked a line drive to Adames at short. Adames should've caught it, but either he misjudged the height or brought his glove down early hoping to catch Meidroth off second base, and the ball deflected into left field. Meidroth got a late start going in the other direction, but with the ball taking its time getting to Heliot Ramos, and Ramos' throw to the infield not directed to anybody in particular, Justin Jirschele still waved him home, and Meidroth tagged the plate just ahead of a very indirect relay throw to steal a run.
That turned out to be all the support White Sox pitchers received, and that proved to be an even tougher task once Civale lost his release point. He handled the first two innings with relative ease, but he started frequently missing high and arm-side in the third, and while he survived the three-walk third, Will Venable ended his day after four innings and 80 pitches, with only half of them for strikes.
"It was 40 balls and 40 strikes, which is never something you want as a starter," Civale said. "It was a long third and then a quick half and get back out there for the fourth. So it was just a lot of pitches in a short amount of time just with the way our schedule is right now, off day yesterday and off day coming up. I think it was a little – losing it a little bit. And then just hand the ball over to the bullpen and trust them to get the job done."
Tyler Alexander ended up taking the hard-luck loss, but he, Tyler Gilbert and Dan "Tyler" Altavilla did about as well as could be expected in defeat. The team's higher-leverage arms would've been just as hard-pressed to get the game to extras.
Bullet points:
*Noda went 1-for-3 with the sac bunt and strikeout at the plate, but I don't think Venable won the offense-defense trade-off in right field tonight. The other option was Austin Slater against a righty, since Luis Robert Jr. and Mike Tauchman are both protecting hamstrings right now.
"Every day we’re going to evaluate where we’re at with our roster and who’s available and do the best we can to field a team to give us a best chance offensively and defensively," Venable said. "If on that day when we’re calculating that and Ryan’s our best option like he was today, we’ll certainly put him back out there."
*The White Sox announced the attendance at 27,549, but it will require exit surveys to discern who showed up for Flo Rida and who just wanted to see some Civale-Roupp action.
