It’s not often you get saved by the Bell twice with a few minutes, but it happened to Mike Vasil and White Sox this afternoon and made it possible for a come-from-slightly-behind victory. The third win of the spring wasn’t as definitive as the first two, and it was as much the result of Milwaukee ineptitude as White Sox successes, but winning games the other team is trying to hand to you is always a good idea.
The Brewers, who had most of their regulars playing against Kansas City in the other half of a split-squad day, took a 1-0 lead in the top of the first — but it should have been much more, as Vasil’s wildness loaded the bases with nobody out. He then got a strikeout on pitches right down the middle and induced a pop-up on his 26th pitch of the inning, before giving way to Luke Bell, who knocked in a run on a HBP but then ended the threat on a force out.
This being the Cactus League, Vasil got to come back out to start the second and once again was in trouble, saved by Brewers runner Jon Adams. The lumbering 6´4´´, 210-pounder decided to test Korey Lee’s pop time, which wasn’t a good idea. But Bell came back again to get Andrew Vaughn to fly out and end that threat.
That pretty much set the pattern for Milwaukee halves of innings, as they had another caught stealing, a pinch-runner doubled off on a liner to first, and, most importantly, an abysmal 1-for-15 with runners in scoring position. They did manage on more run, on an Akil Baddoo homer, but they spent most of the afternoon stranding runners at second and third.
Meanwhile, the Sox starters did pretty much zilch, the lone run in the first five innings coming on an Austin Hays double and Curtis Mead single in the second. Those were two of only three hits through the fifth.
But, as had been the case in the first two Cactus League games, once it became a matter of “our NRIs are better than yours” the White Sox thrived. They took a 4-2 lead in the sixth starting with a Kyle Teel walk and hits by Dru Baker and Sam Antonacci. After Antonacci stole second and went to third on a wild pitch (more gifts, see?), Drew Romo drove in the fourth run with an infield single that was really a bad misplay.
The big blast of the day, though, came in the eighth, off the bat of Tristan Peters:
A 420-foot shot isn’t bad for a Canadian who’s never hit more than 15 homers in a minor league season.
Meanwhile, on the pitching side, the Sox got a big mismatch, using Tyler Gilbert and Tanner McDougal and his 100 mph heater for the last three innings against Milwaukee’s Single-A hitters.
The undefeated record goes on the line vs. the Rockies tomorrow afternoon. And it’s only MLB.TV and WhiteSox.com games on TV for rest of the week.