I'm in Chicagoland for the weekend, and spent tonight at a brewery with a couple of friends, keeping one eye on the game.
Except it was not the kind of game one could effectively keep one eye on, because unlike the last four White Sox games, they generated action in more than one inning.
That includes the ninth inning, which I had no eyes on because we had finished eating and drinking and didn't want to occupy a table. I didn't learn the outcome until the Veterans Committee group chat notifications started ringing. I looked up the score on my phone, and I could only laugh. The Rays tried to lose their first home game of the season, but Reynaldo López wouldn't let them.
After catching up on the action I'd missed, here's the bullet-point recap:
*Results-wise, Michael Kopech had a Lance Lynn start, in which he got clobbered early on but recovered to save the bullpen some wear and tear. Unlike Lynn, Kopech got back on track by finding his exploding fastball, including one that hit 99.9 mph.
The question from here is why Kopech doesn't have this kind of stuff all the time, or even most of the time. Can he access it without tasting his own blood first? That'd be great.
*Calvin Faucher, Kopech's counterpart, didn't seem like that an intimidating an assignment for teh White Sox offense, and the Sox upset the opener in his second inning of work by sustaining a three-run attack. The Sox's biggest hits were all the opposite way -- Jake Burger with a double to the right-center gap, Elvis Andrus with an RBI single through the right side, and Andrew Benintendi slapping an RBI single through the left side.
*Oscar Colás got credit for an RBI single that inning as well, but it's because Faucher forgot to cover first on a grounder to first, and it was scored an infield single. Benintendi's single capitalized on the extra out.
*An inning later, the Sox scored three more runs without a hit. Jalen Beeks and the wealth management firm of Cooper Criswell combined to strike out the side, but they also walked six batters. Andrus and Lenyn Sosa drove in runs with their free passes, and #WILDPITCHOFFENSE scored another. The Rays really tried to give this game away.
*Eloy Jiménez hit his first homer of the season for what turned out to be their final run, but at least they managed to score in three different innings tonight.
*Kopech was in position for the win, although he had to endure some rockiness later. He gave up a pair of two-out singles in the fourth, with Yandy Diaz's single through the right side making it a 7-5 game. Kopech also had two on with two outs in the fifth, but Andrew Vaughn's fine over-the-shoulder catch in foul territory bailed him out.
*The White Sox offense went quiet in the second half of the game as tends to happen, but the White Sox bullpen held serve. Jimmy Lambert, Kendall Graveman and Aaron Bummer all threw scoreless innings. Lambert struck out the side on 11 pitches, and Bummer got a swing and miss on a slider that struck toe, which is the good stuff.
*Then López happened. He faced three batters and retired none of them. He fell behind 2-0 to Christian Bethancourt, then gave up an opposite-field homer that barely cleared the wall. That turned the lineup over to Diaz, who singled through the right side. Curiously, Romy González -- who entered the game as a defensive sub -- took his first step the other way on Diaz's inside-out swing.
*Brandon Lowe represented the winning run, and then he actualized it. After locking horns into a full count, López rolled a slider over the heart of the zone, and Lowe lined a no-doubter into the right-field seats to preserve the Rays' perfect home record. They are now 11-0.
*Benintendi reached base four times from the leadoff spot with two singles and two walks.
*Luis Robert went 0-for-6 with two strikeouts behind him, giving him an individual total of eight stranded.
*López has an ERA of 9.35, and has allowed four homers over 8⅔ innings. He allowed just one over 65⅓ innings last year.
*The White Sox hadn't drawn six walks in an inning since April 22, 1959, when they scored 11 runs on one hit in the seventh inning against the Kansas City A's. Seventeen batters came to the plate that inning, which also included three errors and a hit by pitch.
