Wait, you don’t know what I’m talking about?
Yes, MLB returned to theory on Monday, when the Rockies and White Sox played one of those tree-fall-in-the-forest games, leaving no video or audio recording of it. Statcast is a part of every Spring Training game this season, which is great… but we still live in a world where not every, even almost every, White Sox game is available to watch. It’s hard to get hyped for the season when about a third of the games are televised, and not even 100% of the games heading into the regular season (for example, every game after St. Patrick’s Day) are so covered.
The White Sox lost 5-4 today after a titanic explosion by Zac Veen with two outs in the bottom of the ninth. White Sox reliever Shane Murphy was just two strikes away from sending the game to extras (or, call it a “tie”), but dropped a cutter slightly to hit to Veen, who no doubt drove a good 50 feet over the fence:
Sorry friends, a Statcast visualization is the best we can do for you today.
Murphy’s throw wasn’t crushingly bad; Unfortunately, his goal of staying clear of Veen and letting him chase him out of the zone failed, and his cutter crossed the heart of the plate and set the purple-haired left fielder to drool. If your off-speed is really off-speed (134.6 mph), running comes easy: Veen’s impact was by far the hardest-hit ball of the day, at 180.3 mph.
MLB
Don’t be fooled by the close game. The White Sox were pretty bad and picked a good time to reduce the chance of being outclassed by the worst team in baseball. There were errors, wild pitching and horrible baserunning that helped the Good Guys pull defeat out of victory. Of course, it’s only February 23, but the many flubs didn’t just come from players with three numbers on their uniforms.
Presumptive Opening Day starter Shane Smith got off to a rough start by drilling Brenton Doyle with his third pitch of the game and was knocked out of the box with two outs. The right-hander yielded two runs on his watch, with the big blow being a rippled RBI double by Willi Castro.
After Smith hit a second batter in the inning and left for reliever Jacob Heatherly, it was Kyle Teel’s turn: another mistake by the young catcher, this one trying to get Troy Johnston (Smith’s second HBP victim of the frame) by stealing second base, which led to Castro scoring from second base.
There is so much to love about Teel. I’m just not sure if his catch is one of them.
The White Sox scored away on this 3-0 hole before finally tying the game, 4-4, in the eighth. But even in that triumph came tragedy: Mario Camilletti was thrown out at home while trying to score from second on a Ryan Breaux double to left in the seventh, killing a rally with the White Sox still trailing, 4–3. And even the tying play came from Bizarro world a frame later, when Tristan Peters made a sacrifice fly into a double play after Caden Connor tried to advance to second base as Matt Hogan crossed for home.
From there it was a 1-2-3 ninth for the White Sox, followed by a 1-2-BOOM Sayonara Homer from Veen.
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