2020 OOTP sim: Isn’t Oakland supposed to be bad?
CHICAGO — A crowd of 40,326 imaginary people welcomed in the baseball weekend against Oakland. As it turned out, with it 77 degrees and a 5-0 loss for the White Sox, so at least fans got some nice weather to get drunk to.
In the top of the second, Matt Chapman led off with bomb to left, giving the A’s an early (and continuing) lead at 1-0.
One highlight: Luis Basabe singled in his first career at-bat, but was not rewarded with a trip around the bags.
The top of the sixth gave us a two-out RBI single from Chapman, who has started torturing the White Sox right away this season.
The bottom of the frame marked the first true White Sox action on offense, as Tim Anderson got on with a bunt single and Nick Madrigal was hit by a pitch — but the meat of the Sox order couldn't get anyone to third.
Rookie Mitchell Kasowski came on in relief for the seventh, without much relief. A base hit, error, and walk loaded the bases, and catastrophe was averted when a deep blast from Marcus Semien stayed in the park for a sac fly. But Robbie Grossman tapped an RBI single to make it 4-0 and end the first rough outing of Kasowski's career. Straight off of waivers from Washington, lefty Roenis Elias came in to make his White Sox debut, putting out the fire with three straight strikes against Matt Olson.
Overall, the horrible offense continued for the Sox. I thought we got a new hitting coach?
Oakland scored one more, on a mini-rally against Elias, to land at the final of 5-0. Yep, the Sox mustered nothing in their last at-bats, and thankfully this game was ova.
After the game, Elias was DFAd and 1B-3B Kevin Padlo, just acquired from Tampa Bay, came up from Charlotte, to make his major league debut on Saturday.
The White Sox fall to 42-40, now six games out of first place and 3 ½ for the wild card (1 ½ behind 43-38 Oakland in the wild card race). Cross your fingers that tomorrow goes better.