Over his two seasons and 83 games with the White Sox, Alex Colomé blew a total of four saves in 46 chances.
Through seven games with the Twins, Colomé has blown three saves out of five opportunities, and Wednesday's unfurled in spectacular fashion. He was tagged with the blown save and the loss over 1⅔ innings and 48 pitches.
The blown save was on him. He plunked Ramon Laureano to lead off the inning, went to third on a single and scored on a sac fly to tie the game at 10.
But he should've won the game because although he supplemented the runner on second with a pair of two-out walks to load the bases in the 10th -- unnecessary drama that should sound familiar to White Sox fans -- he induced two routine groundouts that should have ended the game.
Neither did.
First, Travis Blankenhorn assumed the position in which infielders fear finding themselves -- on all fours, crawling after a ball he just booted.
That error narrowed the game to 12-11, forcing Colomé to face Laureano, the guy who started his mess. Colomé also succeeded there with a grounder to Luis Arraez, who committed the worst throw I can recall under such circumstances.
Alex Rios had previously set my lowest bar for throwing competency with his panicked heave to the middle of the infield to enable a Twins walk-off single in 2010, but that throw was only expected to freeze a runner at third and perhaps delay the inevitable. This was a routine throw across the diamond with designs on ending a game, and Arraez Uncle Rico'd it into the Coliseum's immense foul territory.
For a closer spiritual predecessor, I'd call Arraez's Arror the throwing equivalent of the Gordon Beckham-Conor Gillaspie crash. What should've been a routine final out was botched in a way that'll create a reflexive flinch for month on every similar situation.
The Twins are now 6-11 and still losing players to the COVID list. They were shut out in both ends of a doubleheader on Tuesday, then scored 12 runs and lost on Wednesday. With the White Sox's schedule softening up, this would be a nice time to build on an unlikely set of circumstances.
SPARE PARTS
If you're wondering why Yasmani Grandal looked so out of sorts with two interference calls and a bunch of other dropped pitches on Tuesday, James Fegan says that it's a product of a new setup behind the plate that's designed to take stress off his bothersome right knee.
Grandal is also in that early stage of acclimating to the one-knee stance this season, and not because he needed to move out of a traditional stance to get lower and boost his framing, but in response to his right knee inflammation in early workouts. [...]
The knee injury set Grandal behind in spring, and while that and a truly incredible amount of balls hit into the shift have slowed him offensively, he was most concerned about his defense and getting his timing and reactions in sync for the season. About a week into the season, when asked if his defense was up to his standards yet, his answer was a long version of “not really.”
“It’s going to take some time to be behind the plate for a long period in order to get to exactly where I want to be,” Grandal said.
This would explain why we're seeing more Zack Collins than expected early on. This is why it'd be great to see Collins hit better than .129/.206/.258. Here's where I'll note that my preferred pick for the backup catcher job has caught four consecutive shutouts for San Francisco.
Ben Badler offers a couple of updates for the White Sox's international efforts. He confirms the link between Oscar Colás and the White Sox, with an updated scouting report noting that he's improved his conditioning, but not enough to stay out of left field or first base.
And speaking of big bodies, he identified new signing Dario Borrero as a sleeper in the White Sox system, as he's grown from skinny 6-foot-2-inch frame to 6'5"and 200 pounds, with his power starting to emerge.
I found this story helpful in identifying the factors underneath the general listlessness I've occasionally encountered over the last 14 months. When time flattens out, it requires a greater effort to delineate your day, protecting hobbies and other productive tasks from work, or from the desire to do nothing. Which is always a fine option, except when it makes you feel bad about the things you'd really like to do if you could just summon the effort.
Three of The Athletic's writers teamed up to relay Joey Votto stories from more than a dozen teammates. This story's an antidote to the idea of languishing, because Votto seems like somebody who's designed his whole life around avoiding it.
Dickerson: When he got into watches, he went to Europe and he wanted to understand the process of making a watch. When he got into cars, he knew about all the different components, V8, all the different drive modes, whether it was a mid-rear mounted engine or a rear-rear. Is it four-wheel drive, is it two-wheel rear, is it two-wheel front? Know what I’m saying? It’s always really fascinating to simply watch Joey grow.
Although it starts getting into Bill Brasky territory at some points.
Dickerson: Sometimes you just have to go out with the guys and tie one on. I think we had the day off the next day and he … fell into an ant farm. He showed up to the field the next day, he had ant bites all over his back. I’m pretty sure the next day he still had three hits.
(Photo by Kiyoshi Mio/Icon Sportswire)
