For the second game in a row, it only took two batters for the White Sox to score via the long ball. This time it was Edgar Quero’s turn.
Alex Bregman returned the honor off Anthony Kay in the bottom of the first.
Both of the first-inning homers were kind of cheap, not getting to 100 mph off the bat. But Braden Montgomery got one out of the park in a hurry in the second.
Austin Hays couldn’t quite match that velocity in the third, but he topped the distance honors with a 425-foot shot in the third. And Lenyn Sosa tried to match Hays later that inning, but fell 10 feet short.
Sosa also had a double later. Perhaps this would be a good day to check around on possible trades for him, Mr. Getz.
(Braden added a triple, leading off the sixth inning. Please don’t trade him.)
That was it for homers, but the Sox added a run in the fourth on a Brooks Baldwin single, wild pitch and Jacob Gonzalez single, then decided scoring in four straight innings was enough for one day, especially given the Cubs showed no inclination to do any more scoring of their own. Thus the 5-1 score after four became the 5-1 score after nine.
On the defensive side, Tanner Murray made a great play going into foul territory from third for the first out the Sox got in the game, and everything else was routine. (And Murray’s D made up for being the only player with more than one AB who didn’t have a hit.)
Pitching-wise, Anthony Kay had an inauspicious 2 2/3 inning performance as the starter, giving up Bregman’s run and two more hits and two walks. The other seven pitchers did fine, although Jordan Hicks only got out of the fourth cleanly after two hits thanks to snagging a smashed liner back to the box and doubling a runner off of first.
As an added benefit to the game, the only TV was the Cubs network, so it was a pleasure not to have to listen to John Schriffen. The Cubs announcers were quite generous in their evaluations of the Sox.
The win runs the White Sox record to 7-4 … too bad they don’t count, right? White Sox who are not headed to the WBC back in action tomorrow against the Giants.