Giants 9, White Sox 6: Good guys come up short again

The White Sox battled against the Giants this afternoon, but came up short, losing 9-6 in a nine-inning home run derby.

There was plenty of action throughout the game, with eight home runs between the two teams, and the Sox rifling through eight pitchers.

Both Reynaldo López and Carlos Rodón started off relatively strong, both throwing a scoreless first inning, and the Sox bats didn’t quite come to life yet, with only Tim Anderson getting on base followed by a couple of strikeouts from Luis Robert and José Abreu. López would end up pitching two innings, giving up two hits and one run and a walk. Not a terrible start, considering the one run had gotten into scoring position due to a throwing error, but nothing special. Hey, that’s spring training.

Rodón would pitch another inning two-thirds, racking up four K’s against the Sox, but not before Eloy Jiménez popped one over the center-field fence. In my gamethread I called my shot with Luis, but in the end a cold-blooded Eloy took the cake in dropping a bomb on his former teammate.

Unfortunately, the offense would take a nap for the next several innings.

The first three innings of relief pitching started out solid, with a 1-2-3 inning from Aaron Bummer, shutting down the Giants offense with two K’s. But then José Ruiz, hanging onto a roster spot by a thread, came in to pitch for the fourth and the Giants broke open the game. Ruiz gave up four runs on three hits, including two home runs, and yep, you guessed it, he did not return for the fifth.

Anderson Severino relieved Ruiz, and didn’t fare too much better, though to his credit Severino only gave up one home run. Pitcher roulette continued through the rest of the game, with Ryan Burr and Bennett Sousa throwing a couple of scoreless innings. They were followed by sub-par outings from Hunter Schryver and Caleb Freeman in the eighth and ninth innings, giving up another three runs.

The bats stayed quiet for a few innings, and outside of Anderson going 2-for-3 and Eloy going 2-for-2, the offense was a bit dead until Dwight Smith Jr. drove in a couple of runs, courtesy of a double and a HR. The only other RBIs would come from an extra base hit from Gavin Sheets in the seventh, and a Jake Burger bomb in the bottom of the ninth.

The struggle was real today, though we didn’t really get any additional help from our pitching staff after the third inning, as it felt like they were throwing batting practice to the Giants, giving up five home runs throughout the game … YIKES.

It wasn’t in the cards for the South Siders today. The bats weren’t fully there, but we are seeing some solid production from the younger guys. Pitching was certainly rough around the edges, though we did see flashes of success from ReyLo and Bummer, which is a good sign going into the 2022 season, considering our not-so-secret weapon is the bullpen.

Tomorrow the Sox take on the Mariners at 8:40 p.m. CT, looking to bounce back (again!), and bring home a W.