Surprise, Surprise: Rangers 3, White Sox 2

Today’s matchup brought us Lucas Giolito vs. Jordan Lyles and almost a full nine innings. Lyles most recently has been doing time with the Corpus Christi Hooks, and Giolito is mostly known for having a really cute dog. No surprises in Surprise: Giolito was on fire, but key parts of the bullpen fell apart late.

The youngsters paced the offensive production on Friday, with the first run coming courtesy of an RBI by our friend Jake Burger to score Andrew Vaughn. The next run came at the top of the sixth with a fielder’s choice RBI, courtesy of Micker Adolfo.

The rest of the game was a monotony of not a lot happening (or things could have happened, I don’t know, MLB didn’t put the game on anywhere but the radio). Giolito pitched into the fourth, probably because the season is close to starting and pitchers need to build up to six innings by month’s end.

Chuck Garfien tells us that Gavin Sheets makes a great running catch in left to keep the score 1-0 in the fourth. We’ll have to take his word for it, because there’s no video.

The Rangers are still in the stages of their most recent rebuild, so don’t expect a lot of action out of them in the coming year. Joey Gallo is sticking around in Arlington this year, and he’s pretty fun to watch.

Liam Hendriks made his Cactus League debut for the White Sox in the fifth. Hendriks is from Australia. He also has a cat named Winnie Sanderson Hendriks, who once made an appearance in the bullpen in L.A.

Garrett Crochet replaced Hendriks in the sixth and Zack Burdi came on in the seventh; no word on their affiliation to cats. So far, so good through seven. But once Tyler Johnson came in at the eighth, Steele Walker hit a home run to tie things at 2-2. In the eighth, Bennett Sousa walked in a run to turn a tie to a loss: 3-2, Rangers

For those who care about such things, White Sox RISP was 1-for-10, and slow games are even less exciting when you can’t actually watch it on TV.

OH, HE PLAYS FOR THEM NOW?

David Dahl is currently in the Rangers lineup, taking up space in left. Dahl was picked up during free agency after spending most of 2020 injured (and eventually having surgery).

BASEBALL PLAYER NAMES

The Internet says there’s a Japanese baseball game from 1994 where the players had some ... interesting names. This game was 1994’s Super Famicom game, Fighting Baseball. I’m a fan of funky baseball player names (Zach Duke and Steele Walker definitely come to mind) so I am endlessly entertained by this.

FORMER FUTURE METS OWNERS GOSSIP

A-Rod and J-Lo broke up. I wonder who took the picture of him taking a selfie on his boat.

AT LEAST IT WASN’T A TIE

My streak of only covering ties has been broken by this loss. It was not a curse I was looking to carry into the regular season, so I’m quite pleased by it. A little less than two weeks left until playing games counts for something (like division rank, or the World Series).