Game 98: Uh, Yeah…

I’ve been trying to write my usual Moments that Mattered recap for over an hour now and it’s not happening. This game was ugly. It was gruesome. It was flat, uninspired, terrible baseball.

Just one of those nights, really.

The White Sox went up 1-0 in the 1st when Josh Hamilton forgot how to make the most routine of all routine plays. With Kevin Youkilis on 1st and one out, Adam Dunn hit a lazy fly ball to shallow left. Jamilton first took a step back, then was unable to recover. The second out of the inning instead became a single and Youkilis later scored on a sac fly.

Another senseless run came in the 4th when Jamilton cut off a ball in the gap, then threw it back in with no real urgency. His nonchalance allowed Gordan Beckham to stretch a single into a double, put two men in scoring position, and eventually gave Chicago the lead.

The loss wasn’t all Jamilton’s fault, though.

The team as a whole went 1-for-8 with RISP (the one hit being a 3-run homerun in the bottom of the 1st). Yu Darvish turned in one of his worst starts (against not-Seattle) of the year. Alexi Ogando continues to struggle, giving up 3 runs in 2.2 innings of work. Elvis Andrus had an error. Yorvit Torrealba had an error and a passed ball.

Andrus, Mike Napoli, and Jamilton all went 0-for-4 with 2 strikeouts each.

To top everything off, Jamilton got booed by the home crowd as his numbers continue to spiral down, down, down.

That’s the kind of night it was. The team put up 5 runs and it somehow felt like worst loss of the year.

But, y’know, it’s baseball. You have a bad day, then you come back tomorrow and try to make it a better day.

See you tomorrow, Rangers fans.

(Leave a comment or find me on Twitter @twbbg. Per usual, thanks to Baseball Reference for their invaluable resources.)