Rangers 4, White Sox 3: the bleeding continues
It was a walk-off win ... almost
You can’t make this stuff up; you just can’t. The Sox played some decent ball today and still lost games 102 and 103 as the World Series Champion Texas Rangers swept Wednesday’s twin bill.
The White Sox got right to business in the bottom of the first off of rookie Jack Leiter. After a walk to Nicky Lopez and a catcher’s interference call awarded Luis Robert Jr. first base, Andrew Benintendi drove them both home on a double to center. The clutch hit put the Good Guys up 2-0.
As you already anticipated, the lead didn’t last long. Despite two solid opening innings from Matt Foster, who is fresh off rehabbing from Tommy John surgery, the stinky bullpen did their thing. Sammy Peralta, back up to the bigs as of August 26, served up a three-run bomb to Wyatt Langford in the fourth. The southpaw surrendered three runs on five hits over 2 1⁄3 innings.
But do not fear; the Pale Hose actually strung together a few hits in the fifth to tie up the game, 3-3. La Pantera led off with a single, and Benny followed with a free pass. With predictable outs from Andrew Vaughn and Gavin Sheets, Lenyn Sosa came through with a knock that plated LRJ.
The game wasn’t short on bonehead baseball, however. In the bottom of the seventh, with two on and two out, Sosa launched an infield popup, got in the way of Texas catcher Carson Kelly, and was called for batter interference. Then, once he got to his place in the infield for the start of the eighth, Lenyn wasn’t paying attention, and Chuckie Robinson threw a spot-on bullet to him on warm-ups at second that hit him square on the nose.
31-102 pic.twitter.com/NSCuNDvGPf
— Jack (@WhiteSox_Jack) August 29, 2024
Ultimately, though, the White Sox pen couldn’t hold it together, and the anemic offense couldn’t score any more runs. With the score still tied in the top of the ninth and two outs and two on, reliever Justin Anderson gave up the lead run on a single to Corey Seager.
The South Siders tried to get a rally going in the bottom of the ninth after singles by Nicky Lopez and Benintendi put runners on first and second with one out. Then, Vaughn smashed a rocket to left that was a slam-dunk, game-ending walk-off home run. Except that it wasn’t because left fielder Travis Jankowski, who Bruce Bochy just put in for defense, made an absolutely incredible leaping grab to rob AV and all White Sox fans of the tiny bit of joy that we so deserve.
To wrap it up, Gavin Sheets worked a walk, and then, fittingly, Lenyn Sosa did not get his poetic justice and ended the game with a weak fly out. The Sox were 2-13 with RISP. That’s not going to get it done.