A Game of Give and Take

White Sox center fielder Luis Robert gave to the Red Sox yesterday afternoon, and took from them while Sox reliever Craig Kimbrel just keeps on giving to the opposition. Somehow, the Right Sox won 2-1 on a Leury Garcia walk-off homerun to dead center field with two out in the ninth inning. Jose “the Human Pest” Iglesias led off the sixth with a single to center that Robert seemed to pull up on. Not to worry. Kiki Hernandez followed with a drive that had Robert backpedaling onto the warning track, and he still managed to nail Iglesias trying to tag up and advance to second base. For added measure, Robert then singled in the first White Sox run in the bottom of the inning. Which brings us to the ninth, Hernandez again hitting the ball hard to center, only this time it went over Robert’s head and outstretched glove. Did he misplay it? Kind of, maybe. But this is why you spend the big bucks on a reliever who can focus on what needs to be done as opposed to what just happened. And I keep hearing people refer to Kimbrel as a future HOFer. So, why did he issue two walks around a strikeout and then give up a sacrifice fly? That’s two appearances in two days for Kimbrel with him surrendering the tying run each time. Try as I might, I couldn’t find anything he said about either his Saturday or Sunday performance. What did adults used to say around shy kids back in the day? Oh, right—cat got your tongue? That seems to be the case with Kimbrel. A sincere tip of the cap here both to Garcia and reliever Jose Ruiz. On Saturday, Leury failed to deliver with the Sox down a run in the tenth and runners on the corner with nobody out; he definitely delivered a day later. Ruiz is not what you’d call one of my favorite Sox players. But he came on with two out in the seventh and a runner on first, at which point he retired four straight batters. More of that, please. During his butt-covering remarks for Kimbrel, Sox manager Tony La Russa noted that the walks happened because Kimbrel “kept missing with the slider [team website].” That makes me wonder if there’s something wrong with Kimbrel’s arm. His fastball doesn’t seem to have the same velocity it did with the Cubs. Maybe he’ll address that concern someday, or not.