CHICAGO — Brandon Nimmo went over the right field wall in the bottom of the first inning Monday night at Rate Field and took a two-run home run away from Andrew Benintendi, ending the inning with the Rangers ahead 2-0. Texas went on to win 11-2.
The pitch was a 1-0 sinker from Kumar Rocker over the heart of the plate. Benintendi hit it 96.4 mph and a projected 353 feet, per Statcast. It would have cleared the fence in 8 ballparks and would have been Benintendi’s 14th home run of the season.
Nimmo, who carries minus-3 outs above average and minus-4 defensive runs saved this season, described the read off the bat in MLB.com’s account of the play.
“It wasn’t hit so hard that I wasn’t able to kind of get a beat on it,” Nimmo said. “A few steps into it, I knew that I probably was going to have to make a play at the fence. I was able to time it up for the robbery. There is a little bit of an art to robbing homers. Experience always helps with that, but you never really know. You’re trying to be prepared for whenever that situation might arise, because it doesn’t happen very often.”
Kumar Rocker On The Catch Behind Him
Rocker worked 5 2/3 innings, allowing 5 hits, 2 runs, and 3 walks with 8 strikeouts. It was his first win since July 27 and moved him to 5-10. The 2 runs came on a two-out, two-run homer by Tristan Peters in the second inning, the only ball Chicago got over the wall against him.
Rocker spoke about the first-inning sinker after the game.
“I missed that sinker, pulled the sinker and he got a piece of it,” Rocker said. “I don’t know, the way Nimmo was tracking it down, I was like, ‘Maybe there’s a chance.’ And I mean, it would’ve just been an average outing without him catching that.”
Brandon Nimmo On The Momentum Swing
Had the ball carried out, Chicago would have tied the game 2-0 in the first. Instead Texas kept the lead and added a run in the second on Duran’s bases-loaded infield hit, then two more in the third on Corey Seager’s two-out double.
“The momentum was going to go big one way or the other,” Nimmo explained. “For us to be able to keep the runs off the board and finish the inning, and then go tack on two more was huge. Huge momentum shifts there at a really big point in the game. You never know when that point in the game is going to happen. For us, it happened really early in the game. There usually are a few plays in a game that you can point to, and that was definitely one of them.”
Robby Ahlstrom retired all 4 batters he faced behind Rocker, and Jordan Montgomery finished with 2 perfect innings. Rangers pitching set down the last 10 Chicago hitters after Chase Meidroth drew a two-out walk in the sixth.
Jake Burger hit his 22nd home run leading off the fifth and added an RBI double in the sixth. Wyatt Langford closed the scoring with his 15th, a two-run shot in the ninth.
Texas outhit Chicago 14-5 and scored in five of its first six times at bat. The Rangers improved to 66-66 and took sole possession of first place in the American League West for the first time since July 30, a half-game up on the idle Houston Astros. The White Sox fell to 68-63 and remain first in the American League Central.
