It was an afternoon of getaway-day bonus baseball. There was a whole lot of nasty pitching and almost no offense through the regulation nine frames. The Angels technically have a better record than the White Sox, but honestly, they’re pretty terrible, too.

The Good Guys tallied only one run through the first nine frames, and it came in the fourth inning. Andrew Vaughn doesn’t want Andrew Benintendi to have the team home run title all to himself, so he sent a solo jack to left center. With No. 19 in the books and a five-game hitting streak, AV is slashing .333/.390/.556 over his last 15 contests. That was it, though: no more runs and only five total hits over nine innings.

Sox skipper Grady Sizemore handed the ball to Jared Shuster for his fourth start. The southpaw was pounding the zone and befuddling Halos batters as he didn’t surrender a hit until the third inning. The 26-year-old was ahead of the hitters and didn’t walk anyone while striking out one. Schuster, the 2020 Round 1 draft pick (No. 25) of the Atlanta Braves, came over in the 2023 offseason Aaron Bummer trade. The verdict is still out on that swap, but if Shuster can have more outings like the one he had today, it could tip the scales in our favor.

Gus Varland and Prelander Berroa followed Shuster with two scoreless innings apiece. Then the shutout disappeared, courtesy of Justin Anderson in the eighth. He gave up a free pass to Zach Neto, who promptly stole second. Gustavo Compero hit a sacrifice fly, which moved Neto to third, and Taylor Ward followed with a sharp single, plating Neto. That knock knotted things up at 1-1. Anderson K’d Jack López for the second out, and Fraser Ellard came on to secure the final out.

Neither team could do anything in the ninth, so on to extras it went, and the bonus baseball brought the ghosts out. The small-ball approach scored one in the 10th for the Sox. Fletcher bunted over banshee runner Korey Lee, and Vargas hit a sacrifice fly, driving home Lee and briefly giving the Good Guys a 2-1 advantage.

After the Angels answered in their half of the 10th off Chad Kuhl, the Pale Hose struck again in the 11th. Late-inning hero Andrew Benintendi drove home Jacob Amaya, the Manfred runner, with a two-out RBI single, and it was 3-2, South Siders.

The ping-pong match continued as the Halos plated their free run in the 11th again off Kuhl, who was not swell at all by giving up all of these runs.

We had a Yoán Moncada sighting in the 12th when he came on as a pinch-runner for Vaughn. Gavin Sheets pushed Yoyo to third on a grounder, but there he stayed—no scoring for the Good Guys in the frame as Lee struck out and Vargas grounded out. The Halos couldn’t get it done either, so yep, we kept on playing.

The 13th inning was entertaining but futile. With one out, Nicky Lopez walked, putting runners on first and second. After a Zach DeLoach K, Benny worked a free pass. With the bases loaded and a chance to be the hero, Moncada wound up a zero. He went down swinging to end the frame.

Jairo Iriarte got the pill for the bottom of lucky number 13. The rookie secured the first out and then surrendered the winning run on a single that might have been an out had Vargas not deflected the ball that was headed to Lopez. Good times, friends. Loss No. 117, inching closer to history.

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