Better Late Than Never: White Sox End Skid

August 10, 2014 @ admin → No Comments

Sunday smorgasbord: For those who stated up Saturday night, the Chicago White Sox ended a four-game losing streak with a 2-1 victory Saturday at Seattle. OK, even if you didn’t stay up, the Sox still won. They scored an unearned run in the 10th on a two-out Conor Gillaspie single. Sox starter Hector Noesi allowed one unearned run in 7 1/3 innings against his former employer.

Video below of 2014 Playboy Cybergirl of the Year Elizabeth Marxs.

* Speaking of former Mariners, ex-manager Lou Piniella (yes, the same guy who failed to perform miracles with the Cubs) became the eighth member of the team’s Hall of Fame. He delivered a 21-minute speech before the game. Piniella twice broke down in tears. No reports of kicking dirt on any umpires on his way off the field.

* Speaking of the Cubs (OK, obliquely at best), so the Javier Baez era isn’t going quite as well as some had hoped. The rookie second baseman did have his first big-league double, but he also committed his first big-league error when he dropped a throw in the Cubs’ 4-0 loss to Tampa Bay at Wrigley Field. Oh, and he struck out his three other at-bats. He is batting .261 in his five games during which the Cubs are 2-3.

* Speaking of the Cubs loss, it was played in a snappy 3:06. Or about one hour longer than such a contest would have take 50 years. You want to speed up the game? Stop beer sales after a certain time (let’s say for fun two hours) rather than a certain inning. Then baseball will institute efficiency like you wouldn’t believe.

Video below of IFBB Pro Caryn Nicole Paolini,

* Speaking of strikeouts (trust me, we were a paragraph or so ago), Cubs third baseman Luis Valbuena struck out all four at-bats. He has 80 for the season. Meaning the Cubs could have a quarter of players with 100 or more this season. Junior Lake already has 101, Anthony Rizzo 91 and Starlin Castro 88. So that breeze you might feel at Wrigley isn’t entirely coming from Lake Michigan.

* Still speaking of strikeouts, Baez has 10 in 23 at-bats with the Cubs. Meaning he is whiffing 43 percent of the time. For context: Mike Olt struck out 45 percent of his at-bats (84 strikeouts in 187 at-bats) before being sent back to Class AAA Iowa (oh, and Olt hit two home runs Saturday night as Iowa lost on a walkoff grand slam).

* Speaking of game times, the Atlanta-Washington contest lasted 3:38. But it went 11 innings. Thanks to a rain delay, the game did not end until a few seconds shy of 2:29 a.m. Eastern time. Because of a 3:41 rain delay to start the game. And because baseball really cares about its fans. Well, it certainly does once they have entered the ballpark as paying customers. Customers teams don’t want to refund tickets to. There ought to be limits on rain delays, too. With special exemptions, perhaps, on games played in the last month of the season.

* Speaking of the Braves game, former Cubs reliever James Russell entered the game in the 11th with runners on first and second and one out. He walked Bryce Harper on five pitches. End of Russell’s evening. Washington went on to score three runs for a 4-1 triumph.

* Speaking of former Cubs pitchers, Jeff Samardzija was the winner as Oakland defeated visiting Minnesota 9-4. He improved to 3-1 with the Athletics, including 3-0 at home.

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