Andrew Benintendi has actually been playing a lot more left field (23) than designated hitter (13) this year. But when the White Sox have their full complement of six rostered outfielders, his defense emerges as an inefficiency that can be avoided.
When Luis Robert Jr. is on a two-day sabbatical in search for his missing bat, Benintendi playing left field becomes a normal machination of the outfield rotation, which includes occasionally DH-ing Mike Tauchman; a man who has suffered two hamstring strains this year.
Somewhat impressively, the Sox rigged up an impressive Rube Goldberg machine for that to come back and sting in the worst way, spoiling a comeback from a 4-0 first inning deficit when a go-ahead popup RBI double from Colt Keith dropped just beyond Benintendi's sliding grasp in the eighth.
"That ball just beat him to the spot," Will Venable said.
Wenceel Pérez's gap-splitting leadoff single against Brandon Eisert was seemingly erased by Michael A. Taylor's strong throw from center cutting him down at second, only for replay to reveal that Josh Rojas' sweep tag didn't catch his upper arm until Pérez's fingertips were already in. That set Pérez up to score on Keith's bloop. And to further the sense that the Sox defense was on tilt, Chase Meidroth airmailed what should have been a routine flip to Rojas to end it, requiring the second baseman to recover and fire home to gun down Keith by several steps. Sometimes it's good to make a mistake truly no one anticipates.
As Hawk Harrelson might say, the damage was already done and the Sox offense had seemingly exhausted all their juice erasing an early four-run deficit. Korey Lee reaching on an error was the only Sox baserunner after the sixth, and he was wiped out by a double play.
With the various bullets past sprawling White Sox infielders that Jared Shuster's opening inning entailed, there's no good version of his outing being played out in alternate universes somewhere. But a more controlled disaster, or simply a three-run frame could be envisioned if Joshua Palacios' dead sprint after an Andy Ibáñez blooper to short right had ended in a sliding catch, rather than the ball kicking off his heel for a double, and the second of five Tigers' first inning knocks.
Instead it pulled the infield in for Riley Greene to punch a 110-mph rope through it, plating two as Benintendi fielded it like he knew subsequent RBI singles by Dillon Dingler and Javier Báez were coming. Shuster's changeup is awesome, his fastball is vulnerable, and the Tigers swung like a team that had read at least that far in the scouting report.
As bulk boy Mike Vasil swooped in and retired 11 of the 13 hitters he faced for 3 2/3 innings of scoreless baseball, the Sox offense started doing something unfamiliar. They progressively walked down a 4-0 deficit against rookie starter Sawyer Gipson-Long, who grew less mysterious in subsequent trips through the order.
"Last night I found out I was going to go," Vasil said. "I didn’t know how many that needed to be or what it was. In my mind, I told our pitching coach ‘I’ll go five [innings] if you need me to.’ Realistically I knew that could be three, could be four, could be whatever. But preparing for that is just like any other day, same stuff, same routine."
Behind a one-out Taylor walk in the third, Tauchman and Meidroth both turned on elevated sinkers for a pair of two-out RBI hits to halve the Tiger lead. Benintendi turned on another belt-high sinker for a leadoff double into the right field corner in the fourth, and while it's dispiriting that it requires a Tim Elko single and a Rojas sacrifice fly to deep left to migrate Benintendi home from second at this stage of his career, it was progress all the same.
Old friend John Brebbia finished off the fourth for Gipson-Long and AJ Hinch tried to get the fifth out of him too. Long, familiar story short, he loaded the bases with no one out for Miguel Vargas, but jammed him with a four-seamer on his hands that stayed shallow enough for no one to advance. But Benintendi turned on a left-on-left fastball from Tyler Holton well enough for a game-tying sacrifice fly that scored Lee--who led off the rally with a double off the left field wall--to reset the game at 4-all after five innings. As if a 95-minute rain delay wasn't enough.
"These guys have continued to fight, every single game," Venable said. "It was a good job to go down early there four runs and then get right back to it, especially after a couple of zeros offensively. To continue to grind was great. Happy these guys were able to push some runs across and continue to battle. Just got to find a way to get a couple more."
Bullet points:
*The Sox went 3-for-6 with runners in scoring position. Two of those outs came after they loaded the bases in the fifth, though.
*At 3.2 IP on 58 pitches, Vasil set new big league career-highs in both
*With three hits Wednesday, Meidroth has 11 multi-hit efforts in his young career. Robert and Andrew Vaughn have combined for 12 this year.
*The Sox are 3-16 in one-run games this season.
