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Matt Shoemaker had the White Sox trapped in his web
Sunday’s Say Hey, Baseball takes a look at how Matt Shoemaker exacerbated the White Sox’s offensive struggles. Plus, beer and baseball do not mix.
Gary A. Vasquez-USA TODAY Sports
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The Angels beat the White Sox 1-0 last night, and that marks 32 consecutive scoreless innings for the crew from the South Side of Chicago. No matter how you slice it, that’s an awful stat for the White Sox. At the same time, you have to give an enormous amount of credit to the man who held them scoreless for their most recent nine innings, and that man is Matt Shoemaker.
Shoemaker threw 115 pitches, struck out 13 batters, and didn’t walk anybody during his first career complete game shutout. According to Fangraphs’ Game Score 2.0 stat, Shoemaker finished with a GSv2 of 95. To put that in perspective, some of the top 10 starts from the 2015 season were in the neighborhood of 100, so it’s a good way of saying that Matt Shoemaker was throwing baseballs that were engulfed in flames last night and the struggling White Sox had no way of dealing with it.
Things did get a bit shaky for Matt Shoemaker and the Angels in the ninth inning, which is when the White Sox were able to get runners on the corners with just one out. However, when you’re pitching as well as Shoemaker was this evening, there was no panic in this situation. He struck out the final two batters he faced, locked down the victory for the Angels, and enjoyed a refreshing Gatorade bath afterwards. The Angels don’t have too much to get excited about these days (other than Mike Trout making the amazing look effortless on a regular basis), but Matt Shoemaker’s recent performances have definitely been worth shouting about, and his performance on the mound last night was worthy of an extremely loud yell.
- This might get lost in the midst of Chicago’s struggles/Shoemaker’s dominance: James Shields has actually been pitching well again.
- Even in a baseball world with instant replay, MLB managers are getting kicked out of games at a high rate. The league itself is telling them to chill out with the arguing.
- The Rockies were 0-43 this season in games in which they trailed after seven innings. After Saturday night, they’re now 1-43.
- One of the reasons why Atlanta lost that game was due to multiple wild pitches. Naturally, they’re now looking for help at the catcher position.
- Tanner Roark threw eight scoreless innings against the Pirates last night, and Washington cruised to their fifth straight win.
- For all the hand wringing in Wrigleyville about their recent “struggles,” the Cubs have taken a series against the Rangers and looked good while doing so.
- Meanwhile, Cubs starter Jason Hammel is trying to shake his rep of being a bad second-half pitcher by leaning on “prescription” potato chips.
- Ladies and gentlemen, we had a balk-off moment last night in San Diego.
- Fellow fans, take note: Trying to catch a foul ball while double-fisting beers is not a smart thing to do.
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