TCS Morning 10: At least the White Sox employ a killer

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This was not a good nor sharp weekend of White Sox baseball. Defensive and baserunning blunders marked two ugly losses to the Cubs and served as a stark counterbalance to how they out-executed a superior team in Wrigley last month. Avisail Garcia just keeps running into outs until someone takes him up on it, routine throws to first are somehow still an adventure even with Conor Gillaspie off the team and no starting pitchers seem particularly invested in backing up their catcher...but White Sox  still employ Chris Sale.

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Important stuff from an 11-5 Avisail Eve victory over the Blue Jays

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The night of Avisail Eve--where Robin Ventura has said before the game that Garcia would possibly re-join the team this weekend and Garcia didn't play in Charlotte--brought wonder and mystery to every outfield substitution. Why did Moises Sierra replace Dayan Viciedo in right field the fifth? Wait, why did Leury Garcia replace Sierra in right field in the ninth? Wait, are either of these substitutions significant? They're not getting traded! Also they're both hurt, Viciedo in particular was supposedly dizzy, probably from being made to score from first base on a Conor Gillaspie double in the first inning.

There was also a late-August baseball game going on. There were tons of singles. More from the White Sox, though.

Box Score

  • This is why you want to try to miss bats kids. The Blue Jays actually did alright, whiffing 10 out of the 45 White Sox hitters who came to the plate on the night. But they went down behind a barrage of 17 hits, 14 of them singles, most of which were kind of just casually slapped into play and through a hapless Toronto infield. Jose Abreu served up three hits and managed to lower his slugging percentage. Dayan Viciedo had two hits, a walk, and two runs knocked in and didn't get a good swing on a ball all game. Jordan Danks knocked Marcus Stroman out of the game in the first inning with an RBI single that bounced four times in the infield. It was dink and dunk nightmare.
  • Stroman is a good young pitcher who shall be around for quite a while. In two starts against the White Sox, he's been pulled so his relief could immediately cough up a go-ahead home run to Viciedo, and had the Sox go 4-6 with a HBP with runners in scoring position off him. He allowed five runs in 0.2 innings and punched his glove a lot.
  • Pitching in front of his parents, Hector Noesi was either nervous or newly aware that he lacks reliable off-speed pitches. If not for Stroman, Noesi throwing nearly 50 pitches in the first two innings, and leaving the bases loaded with no one out in the sixth would have gotten more scorn. He brought the game it's only close moment by allowing a two-run bomb to Melky Caberera to bring the score to 5-4 in the second. It was about an hour into the game, so it felt more significant. He wound up gritting his teeth for five-plus innings and ate some innings with it.
  • The loopy score allowed Robin Ventura to clean out the bullpen and they pitched---really well? Javy Guerra jumped into a bases-juiced, no one out situation in the sixth and escaped with just one run on an RBI double play. Maikel Cleto pitched over two infield dribbler hits and actually got someone to chase one his sliders in the dirt, and Daniel Webb pitched a perfect ninth. It was kind of disquieting.
  • Alejandro De Aza, thrust into the spotlight at the top of the lineup as Adam Eaton sits on the bench, now has his OBP up to .315 after reaching base three more times. That .315 mark is just three points down from the league-average. 
  • Avisail could come back soon.

Team Record: 58-63

Next game is Saturday at 6:10pm CT on CSN vs. Toronto.

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