The hot-and-cold nature of the Sox offense as of late gave a fizzled first-inning rally an ominous feeling. Sam Antonacci drew a rare leadoff walk against Jacob deGrom, and just a few pitches later a Munetaka Murakami double had him standing 90 feet from home. Yet some baserunning butchery saw the game remain scoreless into the bottom of the first, when Joc Pederson welcomed Erick Fedde back to a pure starting role with a 423-foot blast to lead off the Rangers half of the game.
Facing down a future
Hall-of-Famer who had already worked his way out of one jam felt like a tall task. Yet thanks to repeated rally-sparking efforts from Antonacci, more lasers from Miguel Vargas, some Andrew Benintendi bases-loaded magic and a ninth inning cascade of hits, the Sox walked away with a resounding 10-3 win, their 52nd of the season, fourth in five tries, and seventh of their last eight.
Pederson’s homer wasn’t the only time Fedde let the Rangers get to him, as he was also tagged for an additional run in the third inning on a string of base hits from the top of the Texas lineup. But Fedde kept the Rangers off the board for two additional innings, and there are many worse outcomes than getting four innings of two-run ball from the 2026 version of Erick Fedde. So the decision to pull him for Chris Murphy after just 64 pitches felt apt. With a three-run lead, why play with fire? Murphy was able to handle the bottom of the Rangers lineup handily, which leaving 11 outs for the high-leverage part of the Sox bullpen to handle.
Oh yeah, before we get to that, the other thing. When Fedde departed his half of the fourth, the Sox still faced a 2-1 deficit, having clawed back a run thanks to some hustle from Antonacci on a Vargas double down the line. By the time Fedde was scheduled to go out again, the Sox offense had driven deGrom from the game and turned a one-run deficit into a three-run lead.
The rally was sparked by Tristan Peters and — who else? — Antonacci, who attacked a first-pitch slider from deGrom to drive in the former after he led off the inning with a double against the former Mets ace. Antonacci moved to second on a four-pitch walk to Munetaka Murakami, and then third on Vargas’s second hit of the night. Just when it looked as if deGrom was on the verge of escaping once again, Benintendi — who entered the night 0-for-8 against the 38-year-old for his career — had other plans.
Benintendi has been fantastic with the bases loaded for his entire career, hitting .365 with 16 sacrifice flies, 13 walks, and just eight strikeouts entering today. That double made for 100 RBIs in 116 appearances with the sacks packed. Not bad!
The bright offensive night was darkened, however, by an as-yet unspecified ankle injury to Kyle Teel, who left the game after a play at the plate in the third inning. Ominously, he was unable to put any weight on the ankle, needing to be helped off the field as Drew Romo put on his gear. Romo finished the game 1-for-4 at the plate, which actually brings his average up to .134 on the season. Per Baseball FR’s Francys Romero, Edgar Quero is already on the plane to DFW, so to speak.
Unfortunately, the Sox couldn’t even escape from the rest of the game unscathed, as Colson Montgomery was removed in the seventh inning after fouling a ball off his shin. He’s reportedly day-to-day with a contusion. At the very least, his replacement, Luisangel Acuña, was the one who all but put the game away with a soft two-run single in the ninth to extend the lead to five.
The seventh inning also gave us our first game action look at erstwhile farmhand Ben Peoples, who worked to a sterling 2.39 ERA in Charlotte before being dealt to Texas last month in a trade that remains as head-scratching now as it did then. Peoples worked a 1-2-3 inning to lower his ERA to 2.84 over his first 6 1/3 innings as a big-leaguer.
In one of the more poetic instances of the announcer’s jinx I’ve heard recently, Dan Plesac was unable to finish the sentence “Seranthony Domínguez is on to try to get the Sox through the seventh inning” before Domínguez coughed up a mammoth home run to Jake Burger, who’s now homered three times in 10 games against the club that drafted him 11th overall in 2017.
Domínguez did recover, to his credit, to post a hassle-free 1-2-3 effort after that, and though Sean Newcomb ran into a little bit of trouble, he kept the Rangers off the board in the eighth. Before the Sox started tacking on their five last-ditch insurance runs courtesy of Acuña, Vargas, pinch-hitter Randal Grichuk and Braden Montgomery, it looked like Grant Taylor would be getting another chance to solidify himself as a closer in the more traditional sense. Instead, the extra breathing room gave Taylor some extra rest, allowing Trevor Richards to come on for the final three outs.
With Cleveland’s equally resounding 13-4 win over Minnesota, the Sox remain a game up in the AL Central, and they’re now a season-high seven games better than .500. This graph does not include today’s game, yet the arrow is still as high as I’ve seen it in a few election cycles, so I’ll still post it.
We’ll be back with you tomorrow evening as Noah Schultz tries to secure another series win against a to-be-announced starter for the Rangers. First pitch is once again at 7:05 p.m. CT, and we’ll see you there!
MVP
Sam Antonacci: 2-for-3, BB, 2 R, RBI
Runners-Up
Miguel Vargas 1: 3-for-5, 2 2B, 2 R, 2 RBI
Andrew Benintendi: 1-for-3, 2B, 3 RBI
Sox Bullpen: 5 IP, 3 H, 1 ER, 2 BB, 8 K
Cold Cat
Colson Montgomery: 0-for-4, 2 K, left game w/ shin contusion
Everyone else had at least one run or one run batted in, let’s not get cute, will we?
