Let it never be said again that the Sox won’t eat money to part with a struggling player after they paid Matt Albers $250K to buy him out rather than pick up his $3 million option for 2017. They rostered him all season when he was toast after the month of April, but enough is enough.

J.B. Shuck puts the ball in play, was a great pinch hitter, has good speed, runs hard and is a very nice guy. But he also is a below-average defensive centerfielder and hit .205/.248/.299 while starting 59 games, so while it would nice to keep him in the organization–and they might still after outrighting him to Triple-A Charlotte–it would be a lot nicer to avoid depending on him in the organization in the same way. Shuck is sort of the ultimate fourth outfielder type, and nothing is more fourth outfielder than becoming reviled after exigent circumstances make you a third outfielder.

The Sox also released Daniel Webb, who underwent Tommy John surgery this past year, and never found his footing or a speck of command after being excitedly pressed into major duty in 2014. Webb had upper level velocity and three pitches that could miss bats, but struggling in learning on the major league job never suited him, nor did the wilderness of struggling in long relief after he lost Robin Ventura’s trust. You can only watch him miss him a spot with his fastball by multiple feet so many times and maintain patience in his development, but this is sad.

This is all basic housekeeping stuff; purging players who couldn’t possibly have a real role on the 2017 roster no matter what direction the team went. Activating Jake Petricka from the 60-day disabled list might have been the most substantive long-term move the Sox made on Thursday, and he will need to return to his peak to become seventh inning reliever.

The most substantial thing that really happened for the Sox Thursday was probably the Tigers trading Cameron Maybin in a blatant salary dump. Maybin was a godsend to the Tigers when he returned mid-season from injury and collected a .383 OBP in center field, and yet they traded him to the Angels rather than pay out his $9 million option in 2017, and now have a choice between Anthony Gose and Jacoby Jones in center.

There was plenty of chatter that the Tigers were finally going to turn around and reel in spending after spending the better part of a decade charging at full-speed to try to win a World Series with their Justin Verlander/Miguel Cabrera core, but seeing them purge major league production for salary relief is still jarring.

Refusing to be aggressive because the division is too tough is foolish, but being aggressive because the division is weak can still be good.

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While the White Sox have been slammed from all directions for seeking free agents in the bargain bin, Duke represented the type of modest acquisition that is well worth pursuing. And although Duke was underwhelming in 2015, he was exactly what they’d hoped for in 2016 — a wipeout reliever against lefties who could be used against righties without it being lunacy. Unfortunately for the Cardinals, it was just announced that Duke will need Tommy John surgery, wiping out the final year of his contract, meaning they’ll just have to accept his 23.1 superb innings they got while coming up just short of the playoffs. Maybe one day they’ll catch a break.

Assuming Tilson is able to return from injury substantially in the state he was in before — not a given — he projects to be the type of player the White Sox have struggled to generate on their own.  He’d have to max out his development to be a solid or plus starting center fielder, but he doesn’t need to do much to be a plus fourth outfielder. That’s hardly something that changes the long-term fate of the team, but it also describes Austin Jackson, who was the team’s biggest free agent acquisition last winter. If you can have good bench pieces for the league minimum it frees up resources to spend elsewhere. For example, how nice is it to have Tyler Saladino instead of Gordon Beckham or Emilio Bonifacio for $2-4 million a pop?

With an organization like the White Sox, there is always the risk that Tilson becomes Plan A in centerfield with zero backup plan. That would be foolhardy. However, if used properly, Tilson is a safe bet to be a burner on the bench who can come in as a defensive replacement or be used to help the flexibility of the lineup — or soak up an extra couple hundred plate appearances in case of injury instead of someone like J.B. Shuck, who just posted a sub-.600 OPS while pressed into full time duty. Beyond the tragedy of Tilson potentially degrading his key tool as a result of his hamstring injury, it also meant that the White Sox didn’t get to use the final few months of the season playing out the string giving him exposure to major league pitching and getting to evaluate how well he will do moving forward.

Tilson may need more time in Triple-A or he may be nothing at all.  And there’s also the aforementioned possibility that he hits his ceiling and he’s a perfectly usable center fielder. Or, if the White Sox retain Brett Lawrie — and there is no legitimate reason that they should not — they could run out a bench of Tilson, Saladino, Omar Narvaez, and perhaps the other half of a DH platoon like, say, a Pedro Alvarez or Mike Napoli. And you don’t have be a wild optimist to believe that would have a good chance at being one of the better benches they’ve had in recent memory.

SIGN AN OUTFIELDER!

This line of thought was logical. It was commonly known that the White Sox would go into 2016 with Adam Eaton and Melky Cabrera at two of the three outfield positions, but the third was presumably up for grabs after a season’s worth of tape watching Avisail Garcia embarrass himself out there.

What’s more, the free agent market included a plethora of outfield options. Even once you got past the big money guys — Yoenis Cespedes, Justin Upton, Jason Heyward, Alex Gordon — there were other options, all of whom would have been major upgrades over Garcia.

As you know by now, the White Sox went cheap. The only free agent outfielder they signed was Austin Jackson, who they inked to a one-year, $5 million deal well after the cold, dark winter, when Spring Training was already in full swing.

Signing Jackson is a fine idea in some respects. He’s the type of player good teams acquire as depth. It’s when you’re relying on him as an everyday player with no backup plan that you run into trouble, and that’s exactly what the White Sox did.

Jackson hit .254/.318/.343 in 203 plate appearances with the White Sox in 2016 before a torn meniscus in early June–that was supposed to keep him out for six weeks–ended his season.

During his two months of action, Jackson did provide something the White Sox had been missing: A huge defensive upgrade. Installing Jackson in center field and moving Eaton to right gave the White Sox plus defense at two outfield positions, whereas the former Cabrera-Eaton-Garcia outfield gave them one average defender sandwiched between a pair that patrolled the outfield like they were running through an obstacle course in quicksand.

Let’s be clear: The loss of Jackson didn’t sink the White Sox. Nick Schaefer pointed out last month how teams like the Indians and Mets were able to survive despite key losses throughout the season, so it would be preposterous to assume an injury to a glove-only center fielder would sink a team’s chances at contention. But with the Sox lack of depth, it certainly didn’t help.

When Jackson went down, his spot in the lineup and outfield was filled by a number of guys, none of whom were able to provide anything more than replacement-level work.

J.B. Shuck, the most familiar of the bunch after performing commendably in part-time duty in 2015, was considerably below average in every aspect in 2016, hitting .205/.248/.299 in 241 plate appearances and fumbling around defensively in center field. He was the only one of Jackson’s non-September call-up replacements the Sox even attempted to play in center, and was worth -1.4 WARP.

Jerry Sands was around for a while, too, hitting to the tune of .236/.276/.291 in 58 plate appearances. He had three walks and 24 strikeouts and was borderline worse in the field than Garcia, which is difficult to imagine.

The last of the replacement options was Jason Coats, who burst onto the radar with a hot start to the minor league season in Triple-A Charlotte. The former 29th round pick, who was never thought of by most as any sort of legitimate prospect, finally made his debut at the age of 26 and hit .200/.298/.340 in 58 plate appearances.

Nobody expected the likes of Shuck, Sands or Coats to hit like Eaton or field like Jackson. Each is the epitome of “replacement-level player.” But the White Sox inability to plug holes with system depth has been apparent for a while now, and the revolving door in the outfield in 2016 was yet another example of that.

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However, sometimes excuses really are pathetic.

Hawk’s asinine gripes about the schedule aside, when it became clear that the 2016 season was irretrievably tipping from surprise success to familiar and foreseeable failure, other excuses cropped up. “Well, Austin Jackson got hurt, and what were they supposed to do without Zach Putnam and Jake Petricka?” or something along those lines.

And sure, J.B. Shuck is a downgrade from Jackson, and the replacement-level guys who slotted in to middle relief in the wake of Putnam and Petricka were generally very bad. But even I–the biggest Zach Putnam fan in the world, who got in on the ground floor–would never argue that these losses are anywhere close to those of several playoff teams.

For example, the Indians can’t exactly paper over mistakes with money.  Cleveland is an interesting comparison for the White Sox in that sense, as well as the fact that they projected to have problems scoring runs, and that the main strength of the team was a cost-controlled stable of quality starting pitchers.

Cleveland has already won 90 games. They did this despite only getting 43 horrible PAs from Michael Brantley, instead of the .319/.382/.494 line over 635 PAs per year they did the two years before. What’s more, they won’t get more than 150 innings out of either Carlos Carrasco or Danny Salazar. Yan Gomes had an OPS of .529 for ~250 PAs in between injuries.

The Mets are another offensively-challenged squad with financial limitations and a roster built around potent starting pitching.  As of this drafting, they have a pretty good grip on the first Wild Card slot in the National League. Matt Harvey, Steven Matz, Jake deGrom, David Wright, Neil Walker…all of them lost for significant chunks of the season to injury.

These teams illustrate the failings of the White Sox more so than, say, the Dodgers, who can burn through hundreds of millions of dollars of brittle pitchers without blinking. And while the Mets are in the National League and get to play a lot more games against the worst teams in the majors, they and Cleveland lost a lot more really, really great players to injury than the White Sox did and succeeded anyway, despite being situated very similarly.

There are myriad reasons for that. The Mets spent in the offseason to retain an elite bat and brought in potential stopgaps like Kelly Johnson, James Loney, and (ugh) Jose Reyes when problems arose. They also opted for one of the best defensive catchers in the majors as the primary backup, especially with regard to framing, in the form of Rene Rivera.

Cleveland succeeded by actually hitting with the cheap free agents they signed, such as Mike Napoli, Rajai Davis, and even, to an extent, Marlon Byrd. They added Abraham Almonte for the modest price of an aging lefty specialist. And, they got Tyler Naquin with their 2012 first round pick instead of Courtney Hawkins.

There are a lot of reasons why the White Sox failed in 2016.  Looking at how other organizations solved the same problems with similar resources helps put in perspective that although these problems are significant, they are not insurmountable with competence and creativity.

And keep that in mind if the organization tries to deflect blame for their mistakes on the losses of some pretty fungible players.

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Well guess what, it happened again. With all of the caveats cited in my January piece about single-season WARP totals–although FRAA is better than say, UZR or DRS–the White Sox wound up using as regulars a bunch of below-replacement level players.  By this metric, recently departed Dioner Navarro was the worst position player in the majors at -2.4.* But it doesn’t stop there. J.B. Shuck has now accumulated 231 PAs and in that time his .250 OBP and .307 SLG have been good enough for a -1.2 WARP, 8th worst in MLB.

If the excuse here is, “They were counting on Austin Jackson and he got hurt” I would point out that Jackson himself was below replacement when he was injured for the rest of the season as well.  And while we’re at it, if the plan is, “Nobody can get hurt, even our worst position players, or we’re done,” then the plan is really bad.

*The second-worst weighed in at -1.9 so Navarro was basically lapping the field. 

Even if we grant a mulligan for Jimmy Rollins‘ stopgap -0.3 WARP, we have Carlos Sanchez‘ breathtaking season wherein his meager 98 PAs were so bad that he is still the 21st worst player in baseball by this measure.  I haven’t even had to mention Avisail Garcia, who is somehow barely above replacement level, but only because, for reasons that elude me, FRAA likes his defense. So if you disagree with its assertion that he is a positive in the outfield, he too is one of the worst players in the league.

“Once again this team proves that replacement level doesn’t exist if you have no organizational depth.” – Ethan Spalding

They’ve had some bad luck, to be sure, although of all the rookies who got injured this year, Charlie Tilson likely represented the only realistic upgrade on what they have.  Shuck is a low bar to clear, as we discussed, but even so, you’d have to be pretty bullish on Tilson to have expected him to perform much better than Jackson’s bench-quality production this year anyway.

So it’s been another season of simply rearranging problems instead of solving them.  To be sure, the infield is in better shape than it was–third base and second base have legitimate major leaguers in place for 2017 (although afterward they project to be disasters again), and barring incident, shortstop looks like it has a long-term solution.  However, designated hitter, starting catcher, and at least one outfield spot are all looking dire again, and the September call-ups do not offer excitement about next year the way, say, Trayce Thompson did.  And again, left field is looking like a void waiting to happen after 2017 as well.

The White Sox are now more than a few seasons into their overhaul of their Latin America program and the CBA overhauling the draft to suit their preferences, and yet the depth is still woefully inadequate at the major league level and in the high minors.  An organization that won its only World Series in a century with a team that was defined by a lack of weaknesses, instead of elite players carrying dead weight, they have since tried for more than a decade to make the latter work, to no avail.

What’s that cliche about the definition of insanity again?

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1. Matt Albers, an absolute tomato can for three and a half months, was the limit of how far into the bullpen the Sox could dip before things went irretrievably south.

Albers allowed a groundball leadoff single through the five-six hole to Christian Colon–drafted before Chris Sale and still with more World Series WPA than that guy–and allowed Lorenzo Cain to free himself from the shame of a previously 0-for-6 night. Cain dropped a liner in front of J.B. Shuck, Colon scooted around to score, and everyone was finally allowed to go home.

2. The game was extended when David Robertson blew his second save in as many nights in the 11th. After falling from ahead to issue a leadoff walk to Eric Hosmer, the Royals gave him a free out on a bunt, forestalling his command failing him and the Sox for one batter, until Salvador Perez smacked a game-tying double to the right-center gap to put the game at 2-2. Robertson has now blown four of his last eight saves, six of 33 save opportunities on the year, and his peripherals have been generally really bad all season. It’s a concern!

Robertson’s latest screwup prevented Tim Anderson being the hero for flaring a two-out bloop over Hosmer’s head for a go-ahead RBI single in the top half of the inning, so now we just have to focus on him striking out five times.

3. Jose Quintana had a pinnacle Jose Quintana start, and bless him for it. He glided through two perfect innings with barely any effort to open the night, pitched over a galling Frazier error on a would-be inning-ending double play ball in the third, and took a shutout into the eighth until a one-out Paulo Orlando double chased him because he was protecting a 1-0 lead with 97 pitches on his tab.

Nate Jones came on in relief and immediately allowed a game-tying double to Cheslor Cuthbert, and then it truly became a Quintana start, and a no decision. Quintana pulled into a tie with Aaron Sanchez for the AL ERA lead on the night.

4. The White Sox sole tally of the first nine innings came off the power bat of Shuck, who swatted his fourth home run of the season in the third off Ian Kennedy, and later added a run-saving over the shoulder catch in center in the fifth. Shuck had four career home runs in 850 plate appearances coming into the season.

Efforts to add an additional run in the seventh were thwarted when Omar Narvaez–instant offense these days–was thrown out at home on a close play following a single from, of course, J.B. Shuck. Replays indicated Narvaez might have gotten his hand in before the tag, but the call stood.

5. Robin Ventura managed to order the first two intentional walks of Alcides Escobar‘s season. Teams have typically decided to attack the typically light-hitting shortstop, who is scuffling through an especially bad .251/.280/.307 season, but Ventura dodged him in the ninth with the winning run on second, so that Jones–against whom Escobar would be extremely overmatched–could blow away the even more hopeless Raul Mondesi Jr. to end the inning. Mondesi was clearly worse, and there’s an element of being haunted by what Escobar pulled off in the ninth the previous night, but it was beyond needless, and they needed to play another inning to win anyway.

Ventura did it yet again in the 11th in an identical scenario, only Ned Yost simply pinch-hit Christian Colon, who has the same season numbers as Escobar. When Dan Jennings was finally allowed to face Escobar with the winning run on third in the 13th, he struck him out to escape the inning after a Jarrod Dyson leadoff triple. It was probably the best moment of the night!

Team Record: 54-59

Next game is Thursday at 7:15pm CT at Kansas City on WPWR

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1. Pretty much all of the action in this game occurred in the second inning, and all with two outs. Pineda retired the first five batters of the night and he fell right into his usual modus operandi: losing command with two outs. A Brett Lawrie single and Dioner Nivarro walk put runners on first and second, and Avisail Garcia drew first blood by hitting an RBI single to left field. The Sox may have been robbed of a run after J.B. Shuck hit a ground rule double (so only one run could come in), but Tim Anderson made that moot as he hit a double to knock in another two. It was such a great at-bat from Anderson; with two strikes, he capitalized on the hanging slider and knocked it down the left field line. The Sox would grab a 4-0 lead after that inning, and they wouldn’t look back.

2. It’s kind of funny that Pineda settled down after that inning, but he did. Nonetheless, the Sox were able to tack on one insurance run in the sixth. Melky Cabrera walked with one out, and Todd Frazier hit a line-drive single that allowed Cabrera to move to third. Lawrie hit a grounder to the left side of the infield, and Didi Gregorius made a wondrous play that fell just short. He dove, made an accurate throw to second, but Starlin Castro bobbled the ball on the transfer to nix the double play.

3. Gonzalez, unlike Pineda, did not have a meltdown inning. In fact, he didn’t really allow much of anything. He allowed just five hits and a walk over seven innings, while striking out three in the process. He only had multiple base runners in the first inning, and he got out of that without a scratch. Every other base runner came isolated within an inning, and he generated weak contact after weak contact. It’s really nice to see that Gonzalez has settled into the back end of the rotation. He now has a 4.39 ERA/4.30 FIP on the year. That’s all you can ask for from non-Chris Sale/Jose Quintana pitchers on this team.

4. The bullpen had an easy time of it to close this one out. Zach Duke allowed a single to Jacoby Ellsbury in the eighth, but nothing else, and then just allowed a single to Brian McCann in the ninth before being replaced by David Robertson with one out. Robertson allowed a single to Castro, but quickly got two quick outs to end things.

5. Winning two out of three against a comparably talented team is a great outcome, and they’ll hopefully carry that momentum to their next series against the Braves, who are currently 28-57. Game one of the series is on Friday; Sale will face Matt Wisler at 7:10 PM CT.

Team record: 44-41

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1. Jose Quintana got off to a rough start, allowing a solo shot to George Springer in the first Astros at bat of the game.  Fortunately, he would only allow three baserunners after that, over the course of seven brilliant innings. Quintana was efficient and induced a lot of weak contact in the air–although as the game progressed there were a few deep drives to center and right, but they hung up for J.B. Shuck and Adam Eaton to corral.

Quintana got his first win since May 8th.

2. The offense looked quite competent collectively, tallying nine hits and drawing four walks on the day, even in the face of solid work from Collin McHugh. McHugh was missing bats and his curveball looked particularly effective. But between working walks and spoiling pitches, the White Sox drove him out of the game shy of six innings. Tim Anderson crushed a double off the top of the wall in right field, and may have had a triple but for Shuck having to hold up in front of him.

It wasn’t a mistake on Shuck’s part, because Springer nearly caught Anderson’s blast anyway (and briefly appeared to injure himself in the process).

Anderson had his at-bats where he looked overmatched–Luke Gregerson threw him three nasty sliders that he clearly couldn’t handle–but he also absolutely scalded another two hits today.

3. Drama cropped up somewhat surprisingly late in the game, as Jose Abreu took a 94 mph fastball off of the tricep on an 0-1 count.  Leading off the top of the 7th, Quintana quickly got two outs before throwing twice way inside to Evan Gattis.  Gattis took exception and the home plate umpire immediately issued a warning to both dugouts.

An instant later, Houston manager A.J. Hinch charged out onto the field and was ejected before he could get within ten feet of Ryan Blakney. To add injury to insult, Quintana would then rally from down 3-0 to strike out Gattis and end the inning.

As I was actually in attendance today I was able to hear the Astros fans booing–and hissing. Like, the way crowds would hiss at mustache-twirling villains in 1920s vaudeville acts.

Nate Jones was absolutely dominant, striking out the first two batters he faced on six pitches as part of a clean 1-2-3 eighth, and although Robertson allowed the tying run to come to the plate in the hulking form of A.J. Reed, he gave the rookie nothing to hit and maintained a scoreless ninth.

5. J.B. Shuck and Avisail Garcia–brothers in tragedy–continue to trade leads in OPS.  After today’s game, Garcia has a .001 edge over Shuck with a .661 mark, but if they’re going to be equals at the plate, Shuck is clearly the more valuable player as he can actually play serviceable defense in the majors.

Even so, the White Sox managed to take two out of three from a quality Astros team without arguably their best hitter. Now only two games out of the Wild Card, the White Sox have six games against the Yankees and Braves before the All-Star Break to keep making up ground.

Team Record: 42-40

Next game is Monday vs. New York at 1:10pm CT

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Things looked pretty bleak for Sale through the first three innings. After allowing a solo homer to Jose Altuve in the first, he was touched for three in the third thanks for a rally started by the bottom of Houston’s order and a little small ball.

Danny Worth led off the inning with a walk, Jake Marisnick tried to sacrifice him to second and wound up with a bunt single, and after George Springer’s long flyout advanced Worth to third, he scored on a safety squeeze bunt by Marwin Gonzalez. Back-to-back singles by Altuve and Carlos Correa followed and Sale and the Sox trailed 4-2.

Thankfully for the Sox, Doug Fister couldn’t find the strike zone all afternoon and, thanks almost entirely to Dioner Navarro (that’s designated hitter Dioner Navarro to you), and J.B. Shuck (that’s Home Run Hitter J.B. Shuck) he wasn’t long for the game.

Navarro drove home the first two runs of the game on a triple that maybe, possibly would’ve definitely been a triple anyway had Springer not bobbled the ball that was driven out to right-center field, scoring Todd Frazier and Alex Avila. After Shuck hit his third home run of the season to pull the Sox within a run, Navarro came up again in the fifth, this time with the bases loaded and two outs against a laboring Fister, and drove a two-run single to left field to give the Sox the lead for good and end Fister’s day.

The White Sox margin of victory could’ve been even more comfortable if not for a couple of baserunning gaffes. Navarro was thrown out at home after the aforementioned triple when he was off on contact on a ground ball to third base by Shuck. Adam Eaton found a way to get thrown out at both third base AND home plate in the same game. He slipped while rounding third base on a single by Brett Lawrie in the third inning, tried to score anyway, and was thrown out easily, and then tried to take third base on a ball in the dirt in the fifth only to be gunned down. That’s three TOOTBLANs in five innings for the White Sox, if you’re scoring at home.

After reliever Michael Feliz basically shut down the Sox for three innings following Fister’s departure, saving Houston’s bullpen a lot of extra work, the Sox gave Sale some rare insurance. Avisail Garcia’s two-out single in the eighth was the only baserunner allowed by Feliz (he struck out seven), but after he was lifted for Tony Sipp, Shuck drove home Garcia with an RBI triple and Tim Anderson followed with an RBI double to complete the White Sox scoring for the afternoon. Every member of the starting lineup recorded a base hit on Saturday except Avila, who walked twice.

As is life with the White Sox, the end did not come without drama. Sale’s afternoon ended after the first two hitters of the eighth inning reached — a single by Springer and two-base error by Frazier off the bat of Gonzalez, but Nate Jones came in and limited the damage, allowing a sacrifice fly to Altuve before retiring Correa and Gomez. Sale’s final line was 7 IP, 4 ER, BB, 9 K.

David Robertson earned the save but not before making things interesting by allowing a two-out home run to A.J. Reed.

The White Sox have played exactly half of their 2016 schedule now and stand a game above .500. They’ll go for the series victory at 1:10 p.m. Sunday when Jose Quintana takes on Collin McHugh.

Team record: 41-40

Lead Image Credit: Kim Klement // USA Today Sports Images

All they really need to do is collect wins somehow and steel themselves while they wait for roster upgrades, and it seems the Sox are determined not to offer anything beyond the minimum.

1. Ninth hitter J.B. Shuck‘s jamshot bloop single–his third hit of the day–plated the final go-ahead run with two outs in the bottom of the eighth, and undid the torture of blowing 2-0 and 5-2 leads to the worst team in the American League.

Luckily, Shuck’s go-ahead blow, coupled with Avisail Garcia’s aggressive slide, came late enough in the game that the Sox could use the good part of their bullpen. Daniel Robertson struck out the side with some of his most ludicrous stuff in the ninth and coupled with Nate Jones to provide seven scoreless outs, five of which came by strikeout to hold the Twins off.

2. Shuck’s blow capped off a big day for maligned parts of the batting order. Garcia got the scoring started in a three-run fourth against the usually irksome Tommy Milone by fisting an RBI single to right, and scored twice on the day. Seemingly hopeless call-up Matt Davidson, got his first major league RBI in his second at-bat by drilling another RBI single up the middle, and the Sox were able to chase a both ineffective and uncommonly wild Milone after just three and third innings and five runs.

On the other hand, Davidson fracturing his right foot while running the bases sucked most of the thrill out of his success.

3. Carlos Rodon was, at points, incredibly awesome. He retired the first 11 batters he faced and struck out five of them for good measure, again sitting comfortably at 94-95 mph and showing off a tight slider that was effective even at as high as 91 mph. He immediately followed up that dominance by allowing back-to-back solo shots to Robbie Grossman and Brian Dozier on fastballs down the pipe in the fourth inning to hand back an early lead.

After a perfect fifth inning, Rodon curiously came out for the sixth inning with nothing left. Byron Buxton led off the sixth with a double to left, and scored on the next batter when Eduardo Nunez drove him in with a single. Grossman and Dozier combined again to drive Rodon from the game with a walk and an RBI single respectively. Only Grossman being confused by a Garcia bobble and then gunned down at third allowed Rodon to escape the game with the lead.

4. A two-out RBI single by Nunez tied the game up the next inning, and a rough day for Jose Abreu kept the drama going. He banged a two-out RBI single through the infield to score Adam Eaton on a hook slide in the third, but grounded into an inning-ending double play in the first, and struck out with Eaton and Tim Anderson in scoring position in the seventh.

5. Anderson collected yet another multi-hit game, and earned his first career walk.