Six Pack: White Sox 5, Cubs 3

The game in a nutshell

The Big Baby BOOM in the first inning, pushing the White Sox lead to 5-0 and giving the South Siders enough to win without a single out. He was breaking contact with Yu Darvish from the get-go: Tim Anderson pushed twice with two strikes, Yoan Moncada RBI single, then José Abreu hit a single, and Edwin Encarnacion ducked at ball four to pack the bags with Good Guys. Cue Eloy. And after a deep flight by Luis Robert and a K by Leury, James McCann hit a single and, in the first inning, Rossy raised the white flag and pulled him Cubs off the field.

Warm white
Sorry, Eloy, Yoan, Timmy, but the key winner tonight for the White Sox was Dallas Keuchel, who pitched as if he owned the place – tons of ground shots, one hit, faces the minimum of five. Damn if this is our first starter.

The best enemy
Kyle Schwarber didn’t have “Schwarbombs”, much to Chads’ chagrin and maybe some Trixies everywhere, but it was 2 for 3 in a game that basically seemed like the Cubs were swinging with Wiffle bats.

Magic Number: 2

The White Sox crushed Darvish so hard just out of the gate, the first inning was called up after just two outs. While not wanting to rush the pitches too much is understandable, the decision to cut the inning was strange given that Darvish pitched in the fifth inning. I mean, look at how Gameday dealt with the merciful murder from the first post:

In truth, the White Sox nine men, but the entry was cut. Maybe not fighting outside was a basic rule for this game, I don’t know. Way to Leave Jose Abreu to Third at Chance and Then Get Him to Get [checks notes] collected, Ricky!

Sox Vox
“They’d probably like to see Darvish turn five …” –Steve Stone, sometime during Yu’s horrible firsts.

First look: Tuesday

Going back to intra-school action, where Ricky Renteria plans to get many replays of Yoán Moncada to see how he responds to his first taste of action tonight. Both Reynaldo López and Dylan Cease will go up and down four or five times on Tuesday, making it clear that who is the third starter and who is the fourth has not yet been determined.