– Well it appears Sale’s “dead arm” is over with for now and nine days of rest was all he needed. It was very encouraging to see him get up to 95-96 on the gun again. He was back to his stellar self tonight, and really just made two mistakes all game. They both just happened to leave the yard.
– Mendoza had a pretty nice game, but with that said, why in God’s name would ANYONE throw Gordon Beckham a first pitch curveball in a tie ballgame? Beckham has shown over the past three years that he’s one of the worst fastball hitters when it comes to everyday players in baseball, so you throw the guy a rolling curveball first pitch? Someone didn’t do their homework. I’m not trying to take anything away from Gordon, as that was HUGE and he knew all game Mendoza was falling in love with his curve and hanging it. He had to have gone up there figuring he was going to throw one in the sequence that hung, and it was his job to jump all over it. Fantastic job by Gordo, but man, what a costly brain cramp by Mendoza.
The White Sox have shown this season that anyone on this team can step up and be a hero. Tonight, it was Gordon Beckham’s turn (photo via Midwest Sports Fans).
– I usually write this recap as the game goes along, and after his home run, I had written a little blurb about how Jeff Francoeur likes to kill the White Sox. As you could imagine, I didn’t include it after the horrible angle he took on Youk’s double. A good angle holds Youk at first, and considering the arm of Francoeur, probably holds Danks at second. Between that and the curveball to Beckham, it was an eighth inning to forget for the Royals, and one where the Sox capitalized on KC’s mistakes.
– Not sure what the Royals were doing on the squeeze play. As Steve Stone pointed out, that was not a suicide squeeze because if it was, Abreu needs to be running on the pitch. It was a safety squeeze, which means the runner on third base needs to read the bunt after it is put down. So, either Abreu made a horrible read on the safety squeeze or forgot to run on the suicide squeeze. Horrible mistake by him, as Escobar likely beats out that bunt and KC has bases loaded with one out, and as we can see, you cannot give Chris Sale bail out opportunities like that. You won’t win against that guy in that situation.
– Great to see Paulie get a ball to leave the yard again, as it was his first home run since July 28th in Texas. What a great time to break out of his home run slump too, as his “screamin’ meme” out of the park tied the game.
With Detroit winning tonight, the Sox remain 1.5 games ahead of them. The Tigers are playing some good baseball right now, so it’s up to the Sox to keep up with them for the time being. It’s Cy, I mean Bruce Chen against Jake Peavy tomorrow night. The Sox have hit Chen well of late, so I’d expect for the Sox to keep that up.