Those expecting the worst team in baseball to roll over in their series with the Chicago White Sox are no doubt surprised by the spunk shown by the the Atlanta Braves on the South Side. Perhaps their extra-inning win in the single game make-up scheduled with the Chicago Cubs the day before the Sox series lit their fuse. What .341 team wouldn’t be jazzed after beating a .600 team?
Atlanta definitely brought some Georgia juju from the North Side down to the South Side to open the weekend series, because they beat up Sox ace Chris Sale. Major League’s winningest pitcher had to take a rare loss, the scoreboard reading 11 – 8 by the night’s end. Or perhaps it was because it seems that half the Brave roster is made up of deposed Sox. Catchers Tyler Flowers and A.J. Pierzynski, and infielder Gordon Beckham are all ChiSox alums. Utility infielder Emilio Bonafacio would be included, but he was ironically just designated for assignment after Beckham came off the disabled list. Did that quorum of Braves have the tribal knowledge to clue the club in on how to beat Sale?
On Saturday’s afternoon contest (June 9), the usually hard luck lefty Jose Quintana managed to hold the Braves to four runs, getting the 5 – 4 win. Remember how the Sox managed to recently hit an impressive seven homers in a single game, and still lost? The Braves definitely showed their Sox side in Saturday’s game. Chicago’s seven homer game might have been a win if there had been anyone on base for any of those seven dingers (there weren’t). So the fact that all four Braves runs against Quintana were accounted for by solo home runs certainly suggests some Sox biochemistry in the Atlanta DNA – especially since one homer was knocked out by the .290 (!) hitting Beckham.
The Sox may have learned their solo homer lesson, since Todd Frazier hit the only Sox long ball (his 25th) with a man on. He later added an RBI double, but that was as hard as the ball got hit by the Sox, as they small-balled the remaining runs.
With a Sunday win over the Braves, the Sox will have taken six consecutive series. After taking two of those series from the likes of the offense-heavy Toronto Blue Jays and the Boston Red Sox, it would be particularly painful for Chicago to end the first half of the 2016 season and go into the All-Star break with the worst team in baseball taking two of three games!
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