After loading the bases in the sixth inning with one out, Noah Cameron was pulled for Schreiber. The Royals were winning only 2-1, and it kinda felt like this was it. This was the game. Right here, right now. Schreiber was facing Lenyn Sosa, who muscled an inside pitch earlier in the game into the Royals bullpen for the lone White Sox run.
The plate appearance was tense. Schreiber jumped out to an 0-2 count with sweepers, so I was hoping for a strikeout as a best case scenario. Then a ball. Then three fouls in a row.
Then, Sosa roped a line drive straight at Bobby Witt Jr. He caught it and flipped it to Jonathan India at second for the double play.
And that really was it for the White Sox. Aside from the aforementioned Sosa home run and the bases loaded situation, The White Sox never reached second base. Schreiber, Angel Zerpa, Lucas Erceg, and Carlos Estévez combined for 3 2/3 scoreless innings in relief. They were incredibly efficient innings – they gave up only one hit collectively. Estévez himself struck out the side in the ninth.
And they needed it. Noah Cameron did not have his best stuff. He seemed to have trouble throwing strikes all night in multiple situations, but he limited his wildness to only two walks in 5 1/3 innings.
For their part, the Royals offense did just enough to win.
In the bottom of the first, the heart of the lineup (Witt Jr, Pasquantino, and Garcia) hit three singles in a row to plate one run. In the fourth, Salvador Perez got a sinker outside and off the plate, but he swung anyway because he’s Salvador Perez. To me it really looked like he hit it off the end of his bat. I thought it was a foul ball at best or a lazy fly ball out at worst. But then the ball just…kept going. It carried. It kept going and going until it cleared the fence and landed about 3-4 rows back just inside the foul pole. Their final run was scored on back-to-back doubles by Perez and Adam Frazier.
On a night when the White Sox really struggled to put anything together, three was good enough.
On another note, we got to see angry Matt Quatraro tonight. In the fifth inning, Kyle Isbel attempted to steal second. He was thrown out pretty easily, but based on the replay it looked like maybe Q would have been arguing obstruction? Unfortunately I could not watch the game with the sound on during that play. The White Sox player was blocking the bag with almost his entire leg on the replay so I get it. Q got chucked while screaming at the umps. He walked off to an ovation.
With this win, the Royals once again claim .500 status at 61-61. The White Sox drop to 44-78. The Royals gain position on Cleveland, who lost tonight to the Braves. At press time, the Yankees and Cardinals game was still going.
The Royals and White Sox play again tomorrow at 6:10pm US Central. Michael Lorenzen is slated to return from the IL and will start.
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.royalsreview.com ’
