A couple of minutes after exacting revenge against 20,602 White Sox fans in attendance who booed him at every opportunity, Yoán Moncada forgot how many outs there were, sleepily retreating to first as Logan O'Hoppe's soft pop to shallow center ended the Angels' eighth-inning rally.
And as far as eighth-inning rallies go, it was a little 2024 in variety, in that it communicated little about the parties involved in this game beyond that the White Sox were not meant to win it. Reprising his role as the team's top leverage reliever out of the gate, Mike Clevinger seemed primed to cut through the top of the Angels order until missing with four straight cutters put Jorge Soler on first with two outs.
From there, hijinks carried the day. A bounced changeup to Moncada kicked so far away from catcher Matt Thaiss that Soler raced to third, and could have scored if "Jorge Soler advances two bases on a wild pitch" already maxed out all available suspension of disbelief. When Moncada produced the umpteenth hard comebacker of the day and Clevinger couldn't corral it cleanly, the target of fan ire for the afternoon was suddenly at the center of the only thing passing for an offensive highlight.
"That was a tough one," said Will Venable said. "Obviously, that hurt us and that was the deciding factor here. But Clev pitched well. Kind of a tough one for Matty to get in front of and weren't able to work around it, unfortunately."
Jonathan Cannon convinced somewhere between zero and three people that his spring training command troubles were completely over with three walks scattered over his five scoreless-but-challenging innings of work. The warmly familiar sight of a passive take from Moncada on a full-count backdoor sweeper helped strand a pair of runners in 34-pitch first, and defending his position helped Cannon get through the remaining four frames on just another 51 offerings.
While Angels starter José Soriano efficiently made folly of the notion that lefty catchers and utilitymen would pose a challenge for him over seven scoreless frames, Cannon needed clutch pitches to escape the clutch situations he built for himself. Double plays cleared up traffic in the second and third, and Cannon aced Nolan Schanuel on a full count with 94 mph on the inside corner to strand another runner in the fifth; accounting for his fifth punchout of the afternoon.
"Definitely a little bit of a battle, didn’t have the command overall but made big pitches when I had to," Cannon said. "A lot of that was Thaiss too behind the plate making really good pitch calls and reading the swings a little bit, keeping me focused, coming out and talking to me, settling me down when he had to. I thought we had a really good chemistry."
Sox hitters produced seven balls in play struck 95 mph or harder, but only Miguel Vargas' lineout to right-center got off the ground. If they were going to travel by ground, that wasn't the way to do it, as the two singles they were limited to on the afternoon both were of the slow-roller variety. Thaiss led off the eighth with a walk against Ben Joyce to lend some suspense to the matter, but even after pinch runner Michael A. Taylor got to second, the end of Brooks Baldwin's 10-pitch battle was one of those six hard groundouts.
Thaiss tried to get things going in the fifth as well with a beautifully placed bunt attempt, but a vintage Moncada play saw him charging in and firing to first in time to beat out an ill-advised head-first slide. In all, the Angels third baseman made some weird decisions, flashed superlative skill and athleticism, and sent everyone home unhappy.
Just like old times.
Bullet points:
*The new Cuban-born third baseman, Vargas, owes Moncada a royalty payment for a savvy double play to end the seventh. He followed a nice pick by dashing to the bag to cut down the lead runner before bouncing a running throw across the diamond to an outstretched Andrew Vaughn.
*Mike Trout is 0-for-6 so far in this series, and on the season. It could be worse, as Vaughn is 0-for-8, including the game-ending groundout against Kenley Jansen.
*One of two White Sox hits was erased off the basepaths in the sixth, as Baldwin took off on an 0-2 pitch and couldn't get back in time on Luis Robert Jr.'s weak popout to short. Will Venable was asked if it was a hit-and-run and didn't deny it.
