You know what was cool about today’s game, besides the presence of a couple of dozen 1993 Chicago White Sox heroes on their 25th anniversary day? The White Sox were shut out, 5-0, with mercy — no three-and-a-half hour losses here, bub.
That’s about it.
The closest the White Sox came to scoring was in the third inning, when Tim Anderson burped a blooper out to center, followed by an excuse-me single through the hole to right by an embarrassed Leury García, putting runners on the corners for José Abreu.
But home plate umpire Adam Hamari, calling a zone built for tomorrow’s getaway to All-Star break and not a day game sandwiched in the middle of a series, rung Abreu up on a brutally low pitch which had the already-stoic All-Star practically turn to stone in the batter’s box as the game went to commercial break.
In the fourth, things boiled over with Hamari. Yoán Moncada bit his lip in anguish over a terrible low and outside strike call, Ryan LaMarre was disgusted with a Hamari punch out and was rewarded by being barked at by the mouthy ump as he quietly muttered to himself on the way back to the dugout, and a first-pitch check-swing called a strike on Yolmer Sánchez made the jovial third baseman break out in laughter.
By the next inning, when Hamari suddenly reset his monocle and got nitpicky on a Reynaldo López balk, manager Ricky Renteria boiled over and got himself ejected from the game.
Overall, the White Sox could muster just six hits off of Opening Day BP tosser Danny Duffy, who went seven strong for the easy win. For the game, the White Sox were 0-for-8 with RISP.
New papa López had an average effort, with nine hits, five earned runs and two homers over 7 2⁄3 innings the ugly end of it, seven Ks against no walks (!) the pretty. Daresay it was somewhat of a Black Jack McDowell outing, only these 2018 White Sox are a little stingier on offense than those 1993 Sox were.
Sánchez had a first-inning, sliding, over-the-shoulder catch of an Alex Gordon foul pop, a fabulous play that Ozzie Guillen said later in the broadcast booth Sánchez “had to make” if he wanted to claim he was from Venezuela.
There was also a clown-car tag play at second in the fourth inning, when Salvador Perez either missed that LaMarre cut off his gapper in left-center or didn’t care, thrown out by miles at second despite LaMarre’s strong throw being well off the mark. Moncada assumed Perez would slide, so he made a headfirst dive toward second base to make the tag; Perez instead chose a sort of sumo wrestler pirouette that nearly worked:
One scary moment came the next inning, when Moncada was hit in the knee with an errant pickoff toss and left the game. X-rays were negative, but he’ll rest until Friday with a knee bruise.
Oh, and hey, we already wished Zoe López and Lucas Giolito a happy birthday, so have a great one as well, Steve!