White Sox 5, Blue Jays 4 (F/10): An Objectively Great Game That I Hated

 

peace was less upon me than I'd have liked by the end of this one

Andrés Giménez's two-run homer to tie the game at three in the eighth (the Blue Jays' first run having come all the way back in the second on an Alejandro Kirk hustle-double [they're of course all hustle doubles for our guy Kirky]) felt so good, man. Giménez is such a great defender that he is almost unreasonably valuable as an even slightly-below-league-average hitter, so when he shows flashes of maybe possibly perhaps hitting like he did in his monstrous 2022 season (his 2025 ALCS was pretty happening, too, you'll recall), one cannot help but be like yes please. And yet it did not prove enough on this cold Chicago day that also ended up in a flood warning, according to my people (honestly just one person) on the scene in that presumably fine city (I have never been). It's true that my innate distrust of extra innings had to be set aside, however briefly, after George Springer did not so much beat out a play at first so much as a lightly errant throw across the diamond drew Murakami's foot off the bag at first by like maybe an inch, and the umpire totally noticed, allowing Davis Schneider to scamper on in. But it (my innate distrust) was if anything redoubled in the home half of the tenth, when, mere moments after Alejandro Kirk had to leave the game immediately upon taking a foul tip off his gloved thumb (he looked into the dugout immediately, which seemed like a terrible sign [sure was!]), Derek Hill craftily laid down a bunt that backup catcher Tyler Heineman had to field while both literally and figuratively cold. Field it he did, one would have to acknowledge, but he sure hucked it down the first base line, didn't he? Like way past Vladdy? Rather than the game-winning third out being registered (I like that word a lot when paired with outs), in came the game-tying run on the error, soon followed by the game-winning run (for the wrong guys! the wrong guys!) on (Winkler, Manitoba's) Tristan Peters' single to right field off Jeff Hoffman, who you can't really pin this one on at all, given the error on what should have been the third out, and all. Not great! Except that it was, as a game; except that it wasn't, as far as my enjoyment right at the end of it. Guess which one stuck with me the most! And so we fall to a barely-keeping-our-heads-above-water four-and-three, whereas we were a few mere bounces away from a juggernaut-that-defies-all-sense five-and-two. The strictures of April baseball are demanding.  

KS