Say Less, Show More

Back during spring training, White Sox reliever Aaron Bummer offered that, “I don’t expect [the team] to lose a game if we’re leading after the fifth inning.” Bummer lost the first game of the season just that way. Evan Marshall lost the third game by giving up a three-spot in the eighth, and Matt Foster capped off a 1-3 start to 2021after he grooved a pitch that Jared Walsh of the Angels turned into a three-run walk-off. After the game, Sox manager Tony La Russa said he told his players “this is one of the most impressive losses that I can remember being part of,” adding “I love the guts of this club and [how] we played courageously.” [as quoted in today’s The Athletic]. Some form of “courageous” is not what I would use in describing an offense that went 0-for-11 with runners in scoring position and failed to generate a single RBI among the four runs scored in a 7-4 loss. If the Angels had figured out a way not to throw the ball around so much they could’ve had themselves a shutout. Like Bummer, Sox shortstop Tim Anderson used spring training to alert the league, Minnesota in particular, just how good the South Siders are. Only the “whoopin’” Anderson talked about inflicting on the opposition was instead inflicted by an opponent. Anderson was batting .200 with an RBI in fifteen at-bats when he left last night’s game after tweaking a hamstring running out a groundball in the first inning. Perhaps a little down time to ponder the virtues of letting one’s actions do the speaking? Just saying.