It’s rare that a Cactus League opener is better welcomed for its final score than for the mere notion that baseball is back. But with an 8-1 walloping of the Cubs at their Sloan Park home field — and against a true Cubs rotation piece in Jameson Taillon, at that — the White Sox managed to make this opener more about the result.
Not to say it isn’t wonderful to have baseball back, even facing a club wearing those cuddly pinstriped PJs. But the South Siders made hay all day, pounding Cubs pitching for 12 hits, six of them for extra bases.
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Right off, it was Austin Hays homering in his first White Sox appearance. (If memory serves, Austin Slater homered in his first regular season PA for the club, and his flip at the trade deadline last summer eventually netted Chicago a potential fifth starter, so start shopping again in the Bronx Bombers Gift Book, Chris Getz.)
(OK, well MLB had the Hays homer footage up earlier, but now it’s gone. It was a sweet, 105.6 mph smash to left field, chasing a Kyle Teel ground out off the bat at 107.4.)
Crisp contact would quickly become a theme of the day. After White Sox starter Jonathan Cannon (an OK first start despite 41 pitches to get five outs, three Ks, a walk and a homer) lost the lead to a Seiya Suzuki long ball in the Cubs half of the first, the Good Guys really went to work.
Derek Hill started off his 1-for-1, two-walks afternoon with a free pass, and on an 0-2 count next Sam Antonacci crushed a room-service fastball deep and out to right field. With this bat chuck from Sam, you would have thought he struck out, but the paisan announced his Spring Training presence with authority either way:
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The White Sox picked up another off of Taillon right away, as Korey Lee singled and stole second, driven home by a Tristan Peters single.
Two innings later, three walks sandwiched around a single out packed the sacks for Munetaka Murakami. What happened next could be characterized as a gift double courtesy of Suzuki or a ball that would have been a grand slam in 16 of 30 MLB parks, depending on which side of town in which you reside:
By the way, Munetaka swung through a 95 mph fastball on the first pitch of the at-bat, but when Cubs reliever Porter Hodge cited the pregame skinnies and dipped right back into the well for a nearly identical pitch, Mune crushed it 408 feet off the center field wall. Take your scouting report and shove it, MLB.
Munetaka’s two hits on the day cracked off the bat at 108.3 (second-inning single) and 105.5 (fourth-inning double).
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After Antonacci eventually ended the fourth inning with a GIDP, the game shifted to let’s-finish mode, with a parade of outs and just three more extra-base hits for either side.
Two of the XBHs was from “singles hitter” William Bergolla Jr., with a double in the sixth and two-bagger in the eighth that would lead him home as the South Siders’ final run.
And the other one, well, get on the Braden Montgomery hype train, because he clocked a first-pitch, two-out triple to drive in Darren Baker from first:
CHECK OUT THAT SPEED. It’s a standup triple on a screaming liner to the wall. Montgomery is at or past second base by the time the ball is fielded and is nearly standing on third by the time the cutoff man has the pill. Whoa.
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All in all, a splendid opener for the White Sox. Shed a tiny tear for those ivy bumblers.
The undefeated Chicago Nine will lace ’em back up tomorrow for the Camelback Ranch opener against the A’s, which will be a CHSN broadcast to boot.
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