White Sox 5, Rangers 4: Andrus, Germán shine; Ramos walks it off

Congrats to the White Sox, who won 5-4 to move their record to 5-3 a bit more than a week into Spring Training, and for MLB.com, for hustling, scamming, bamboozling, and hoodwinking me into believing today’s game might actually be broadcast so that it might be seen by mine own two eyes. Another day, I suppose! Until then we’ll just have to get our news via Len Kasper and carrier pigeon.

Playing time continues to inch upwards for the starters. Andrew Benintendi was relieved after just two at-bats (which included his first base hit in a Sox uniform), but Tim Anderson, Elvis Andrus, Eloy Jiménez, Yasmani Grandal, and Oscar Colás all made at least three trips to the plate, each of them knocking out a hit except for Grandal, who reached base via walk. Despite being the last-to-join member of the active roster, Andrus continued to pick up where he left off last season, ambushing Martín Pérez in the second inning to drill his first home run (and second extra-base hit) of the spring.

The Sox tacked on another in the second inning when Leury García ran his way out of a pickle via an error in the second inning and subsequently scored on a second error. The lead wouldn’t hold for long, however. A pair of hits from Josh Smith and Corey Seager tied the game at two in the third inning, and a sacrifice fly off the bat of Josh Jung gave them the lead in the fifth. Starter Jesse Scholtens was the recipient of the first two earned runs, though Nicholas Padilla was spared the third, which had only reached base on a Leury García throwing error.

Scholtens struck out two and allowed four hits in his three innings of work, and was succeeded by a laborious but scoreless inning from Bryan Shaw. After Padilla’s difficult inning, Franklin Germán reportedly sat 97-98 mph with his heater as he struck out three in his two frames, allowing just one baserunner. That could very easily be something to watch for this spring, if he continues to demonstrate the command to let his electric velocity play, he’ll be a strong candidate to break camp next month.

The White Sox proceeded to re-take the lead on a two-run double in the sixth inning from Erik González, swinging from Tim Anderson’s spot. Though they almost held on from there, they couldn’t quite close it out: Luisangel Acuña, younger brother of the all-world Atlanta outfielder, wound up tying the game with a ninth-inning homer against lefty Andrew Perez, who would appear to be vying for the spot in the depth chart formerly occupied by Bennett Sousa.

I guess the Rangers really didn’t care about winning this game that doesn’t matter at all, because all it took was two walks, a wild pitch, and a dribbler back to the mound off the bat of Bryan Ramos, and the White Sox walked off winners. The Sox picked up ten hits on the day; In addition to those already mentioned, Luis Mieses, Seby Zavala, and Jake Marisnick also picked up base knocks, as Zavala’s already-tight grip on the backup catcher spot appears to be even farther locked up.

According to MLB.com, tomorrow afternoon’s matchup with the Dodgers will be viewable on the latter team’s broadcast. Set for 2:05 PM CT, Lucas Giolio makes his spring debut against Julio Urías and a re-tooled Dodgers lineup. See you there!