After a truly insane nine innings of baseball, the White Sox (9-14) won their second game in a row, taking the first game of the series against the Diamondbacks (13-10), 11-5. The South Side bats were on fire, the pitching was solid, and the defense was making diving plays all over the place — it would probably be easier if I told you what didn’t happen. It’s been a minute since I was this excited watching the Chicago White Sox play baseball, so bear with me as I am still slightly in shock.
Outhitting
the D-backs 14-8, the Good Guys smashed six of those for extra bases: a double, triple, and four home runs. Although they exploded for 11 runs, they did still manage to go 2-for-12 with runners in scoring position and left nine on base, but we’re not talking about that right now. Nearly everyone got a hit, except for Everson Pereira and Reese McGuire, who still managed to drive in at least one run. There was so much offensive production from this team tonight that half of the lineup (five batters) produced multi-hit games.
Sean Burke mostly cruised through his start and was able to maintain control, though the same couldn’t be said for righthander Merrill Kelly. The Good Guys nearly batted through the order in the top of the first, and they wasted no time pouring runs on Kelly and the Diamondbacks, dropping a four-spot to give Burke plenty of cushion before he even threw a pitch. The Sox immediately caused trouble to start the game with consecutive base hits from Andrew Benintendi and Munetaka Murakami, and Miguel Vargas walked to load the bases. Keeping his momentum up from Sunday after mashing a long ball, Colson Montgomery squared one up and ripped a two-run double to center to give the South Siders a two-run lead, 2-0. They tacked on two more after a sacrifice fly from Everson Pereira, and Sam Antonacci drove in his first major league run with an RBI triple to make it 4-0, Good Guys.
If you thought the first inning was fun, the second was even better. Murakami continued to showcase his prowess at the plate and kicked off a two-out rally by smashing his fourth home run in as many games, joining some solid company as just the third Japanese-born player ever to homer four games in a row. Have a freaking week, Mune:
To really pour salt into Kelly’s gaping wound, Vargas followed up Mune’s moonshot with a line drive homer to left, and Montgomery clobbered a 440-foot tank to center to give the Sox a seven-run lead.
BACK.
TO BACK.
TO-BACK!
With seven runs to work with, Burke simply just had to lock in and throw strikes, and he pretty much did just that. It also helped that the South Siders added an eighth run in the top of the fifth on a Reese McGuire sacrifice fly. Burke had gotten into some hot water in the bottom of the first, but cleaned up after himself. Ketel Marte drove a leadoff base hit, making it to second a few moments later on a wild pitch to get into scoring position. A swinging bunt pulled Burke over to the first base line, and he was able to tag the runner and get the double play at the plate to end the inning as Marte was trying to sneak a run in.
Burke was otherwise scoreless through three and was efficient overall in his six innings. Geraldo Perdomo tripled to begin the fourth and subsequently scored on an RBI ground out for Arizona’s first run of the game. Just two runs allowed on five hits — including a solo home run from Alek Thomas in the fifth — and one walk while striking out three. Burke has now lowered his ERA from 4.43 to 4.10.
To help Burke and the pitching staff out, the defense was also excellent and definitely helped keep some Arizona runs from scoring, especially as the ninth inning got a little dicey. Antonacci had made a nice sliding catch out in left, and Pereira was all over the place, laying out twice for two different balls to rob a couple of base hits, making the catches flawlessly. This play, especially in the seventh, was key to shutting down any momentum that the Diamondbacks were building up, as this almost surely would have been a triple had Pereira not caught it:
Out of the bullpen, Lucas Sims tossed a hitless inning thanks to Pereira bailing him out, as the two baserunners reached base on balls, though he did strike out one. For the final two innings, righthander Osvaldo Bido made his first appearance in a White Sox uniform, picked up on waivers after being designated for assignment by the Atlanta Braves last week. Bido walked two batters but was otherwise decent in the eighth, and he fortunately didn’t have to worry too much about the lead since the South Siders tagged on three more runs in the ninth.
After checking his first MLB RBI off the list earlier in the game, Antonacci decided to cross off his first major league homer: an inside-the-park home run. The rookie ripped a ball down the left field line that ended up sort of hitting the ball boy, but Lourdes Gurriel Jr. gave up on the play, likely thinking that it would be called a ground-rule double or interference. Who knows.
Since the top of the inning was weird, the bottom half had to follow suit. Arizona started to rally, and it seemed like the game wasn’t ever going to end. Will Venable clearly didn’t want to go to the bullpen for a couple of outs with a nine-run lead, and I can not blame him for that, but Bido was struggling to throw strikes, and when he did, the D-backs were really starting to catch up to him. After two base hits, he gave up a garbage-time three-run bomb to Ildemaro Vargas, who extended his hitting streak to 19, right in the nick of time. Though Bido walked a couple more batters, he eventually was able to get out of it to close out the game, officially crediting Burke with his first win of the season.
