Talk about adding insult to injury.
White Sox infielder Miguel Vargas had to leave Tuesday’s 9-0 loss to the Orioles after he collided with one of his teammates trying to make a routine catch.
Eloy Jiménez hit a shallow pop fly to left field and … the #Orioles scored 3 runs, extending their lead over White Sox to 7-0 in the bottom of the 2nd inning.
Here’s the play, featuring a hard collision: pic.twitter.com/Ho068ODPv9
— Jake Rill (@JakeDRill) September 3, 2024
The play that took Vargas out of the game happened in the bottom of the second inning when former White Sox outfielder Eloy Jiménez popped up the ball to shallow left field, and Andrew Benintendi, Jacob Amaya and Vargas all went to try and play the ball.
While Amaya ducked out of the way, noticing that two other players were going for the same catch, Benintendi and Vargas continued to track the ball until the two collided, with Vargas running hard into left fielder’s shoulder.
Vargas immediately went to the ground holding his face in clear pain while Benintendi went to play the ball that had dropped to the ground.
“Oh no! Oh my goodness the White Sox have just gone full White Sox,” Orioles play-by-play announcer Kevin Brown said on the MASN telecast.
The error allowed two more runs to score to extend their lead to 7-0 in an inning that the Orioles plated four against the moribund White Sox.
The American League Central ballclub later announced that Vargas exited the game with an abrasion on his right eye and would undergo further evaluation.
After Vargas exited the game, Lenyn Sosa moved from second base to third and Brooks Baldwin came in to play second.
John Schriffen has a question after White Sox manager Grady Sizemore and LF Andrew Benintendi are ejected by Hunter Wendelstedt on consecutive pitches.
“Where are these automatic umps?” pic.twitter.com/Ha5IWe2YlT
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) September 4, 2024
Things didn’t get much better for the White Sox later in the game as both interim manager Grady Sizemore and Benintendi were tossed by home plate umpire Hunter Wendelstedt in the sixth inning.
Sizemore was ejected after he started yapping to Wendelstedt over a called strike he didn’t agree with.
Then came out of the dugout for an even more heated conversation that ended with the two right in each other’s faces.
On a pitch shortly after that, Benintendi was called out on a questionable strike and he got into it with Wendelstedt which led to his ejection from the game.
The loss to the Orioles was the White Sox’s 109th of the season, which leaves them just 11 defeats shy of tying the modern mark set by the 1962 Mets.
