Wakeup Call

My daughter fell asleep on the couch last night watching the White Sox-Angels’ game. By now, she’s awake to the fact her team won, 11-5, banging out seventeen hits along the way. Nice to see my “core” of players produced: Luis Robert Jr. and Eloy Jimenez both homering; Andrew Vaughn hitting a three-run double; and Jake Burger showing signs of life with a leg double. Seby Zavala isn’t part of the core, but I’ll take two homers and four RBIs out of the nine-hole any day of the week. Which brings us to Zach Remillard and Lucas Giolito. What can you say about Remillard? He notched three hits, including a picture-perfect bunt he beat out, moving Burger to third along the way during a two-run ninth inning. As for Giolito, there he was, being humble again. “Our offense was the story tonight. Not me, the offense,” he told reporters after the game [story on team website today]. Sorry, Lucas, but your performance deserves some comment, like how you retired twelve straight batters, from the first into the fifth inning; went seven innings on ninety-eight pitches (Michael Kopech, please note); struck out nine while walking none. Not bad. As for those two first-inning runs featuring triples by Shohei Ohtani and Mike Trout, White Sox outfielders all of a sudden switched from baseball to soccer. No doubt, Rick Hahn will tell that to Giolito’s prospective suitors at the trade deadline.