Chicago White Sox fall to Mets; Moncada to IL with hamstring injury
Injuries to left fielder Eloy Jimenez and shortstop Tim Anderson have been most cited as the reason the Chicago White Sox stumbled out of the all-star break.
They are both back in the lineup, but the Sox played Wednesday night's interleague game against the Mets without their hottest hitter - third baseman Yoan Moncada.
In Tuesday's game against New York, Moncada came in on a groundball in the first inning and made the routine throw to first base. Everything looked fine, but he was out of the game in the bottom of the first with a right hamstring strain.
An MRI revealed a Grade 1 strain, and Moncada is expected to be out two weeks.
"I'm very disappointed," said Moncada, who hit .329 with 10 home runs and 25 RBI in June and July. "This was something unexpected. I don't even know how that happened."
The White Sox have scored 3 or fewer runs in a game 14 times while going 4-15 coming out of the all-star break. That included Wednesday night's 4-2 interleague loss to New York at Guaranteed Rate Field.
The Sox were bottled up again by Jacob deGrom on Wednesday, and the 2018 National League Cy Young Award winner locked up with Sox all-star Lucas Giolito in a pitcher's duel.
"When you go up against a guy like that, you know you're going to want to bring your best stuff," Giolito said.
Giolito pitched 7 innings and allowed 1 run on 3 hits to go with 9 strikeouts. DeGrom also pitched 7 innings and allowed 1 run on 5 hits while striking out 11.
"I was a little bit out of sync right before the (all-star) break and coming out of the break," Giolito said. "After the last start, I really slowed things down. Got into a rhythm and it really showed tonight."
The White Sox's runs came on Jose Abreu's sacrifice fly in the third inning and Leury Garcia's home run in the ninth. The Mets scored 3 unearned runs off Alex Colome in the ninth inning.
Top prospects promoted:
Nick Madrigal and Andrew Vaughn, the White Sox's first-round draft picks the past two years, were on the move Wednesday.
Madrigal, selected No. 4 overall in 2018, was bumped from Class AA Birmingham to AAA Charlotte.
The 22-year-old second baseman hit .341/.400/.451 at Birmingham in 42 games after opening the season at high A Winston-Salem and slashing .272/.346/.377.
In 398 combined plate appearances, Madrigal has struck out only 11 times.
"He's progressing at a really good pace, one that's not totally unanticipated given how advanced the skill set was when we drafted him," Sox general manager Rick Hahn said. "You watch Nick Madrigal hit and you get to see what scouts talk about when they talk about a 70 or higher hit tool. His ball-to-bat skills are virtually unparalleled in the organization and it's rare throughout the game to see a guy who can handle the bat the way he can."
Vaughn, the No. 3 overall pick in this year's draft, was promoted to Winston-Salem after hitting .253/.388/.410 in 23 games with low A Kannapolis.
The 21-year-old first baseman hit a 3-run homer Wednesday in his first game with Winston-Salem.
"Andrew has a similar bat in terms of how advanced it is, a refined college hitter, that he could conceivably be on that same Madrigal path next year that we saw from Nick this year," Hahn said. "We've been very pleased with him so far."