White Sox let a bloop fall and the Astros take advantage of it, a breakdown

What Happened

With the Chicago White Sox holding a slim 3-2 lead in the bottom of the seventh inning, the Houston Astros have two outs and the tying run on base. Astros third baseman Alex Bregman steps to the plate, working a full count against White Sox reliever Jeremy Peña. Bregman swings and misses on a 3-2 pitch, ending the inning. As the teams head to the dugouts, White Sox left fielder Andrew Benintendi casually moves toward a bloop fly ball hit by the next Astros batter. However, the ball falls in front of Benintendi, allowing the runner to reach base safely. Benintendi appears frustrated, muttering to himself about the unique dimensions of Minute Maid Park's outfield. Seeking to understand this play further, the analyst reviews similar batted balls hit to left field at Minute Maid Park. The data shows that left fielders, including Benintendi in previous games, have struggled with balls hit to this area of the outfield, often playing shallower than usual to account for the short porch in left. With the game still a one-run affair, Bregman steps back up in the eighth inning, this time with the bases loaded. He works a tough walk against the new White Sox pitcher, bringing up slugger Yordan Alvarez as the potential game-winning run. The crowd at Minute Maid Park erupts in anticipation. "This is the one guy you probably don't want to see in his home ballpark with the bases loaded against a reliever," the analyst observes. The White Sox make the difficult decision to intentionally walk Alvarez, loading the bases for rookie Chas McCormick. McCormick delivers in the clutch, lacing a bases-clearing double to right-center field. "That's an impossible catch," the analyst says, as Benintendi races back to the wall in a futile attempt. "I mean, it's not impossible, what if he does it? It's really good." The Astros take a 6-3 lead, and the home crowd erupts in celebration. This thrilling late-inning sequence at Minute Maid Park showcases the unique challenges faced by left fielders navigating the ballpark's quirky dimensions, as well as the Astros' ability to capitalize on key opportunities to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.

White Sox are one out away from ending

the seventh inning maintaining their one

run lead there's two outs three to two

bottom seven but the count goes three

and oh okay strike three and one

swinging on the inside and then a really

nice take bat flip elbow guard toss jog

we gotta run around first two outs

Jeremy pain yes up and that's a strike

and now this is where

I don't know what happens because that's

floated in the left and everybody

watching both broadcasts all the fans

expected Benny to catch that and it's a

third out but instead it drops in front

of him and everyone's just kind of

looking like huh

what happened you can see Benny say to

himself that [ __ ] wall man I think

that's what he says right there right

here [ __ ] wall man and looks back at

the wall a little bit like trying to

figure out where he is and where he's

playing I think what the situation is

when you're at Minute Maid Park when

you're in Houston they have the Crawford

boxes and that big cutout and all the

left fielders kind of play to the right

of the cutout because it's so shallow

that you should be able to get to it and

then you have eyes on the balls that go

to the wall back here

but what that does is I guess he's just

kind of off like usually the left

fielder plays way more you know left

especially with the righty up and this

one just hung up there but he also looks

like he gave up on it way too soon I

mean the the base runner that's on base

slow and he's on first base like I don't

think there's much harm in in diving for

that ball

especially with two outs

or maybe maybe you'd say the opposite I

don't know but anyway so I was very

interested in this and I wanted to see

if there's more balls like this that

have been hit at Minute Maid Park and

where the fielders played them so what I

did is I ran this search we got venue

Minute Maid Park right we got batted

ball Direction pull by a

batter-handedness righty batter so

righty batters pulling the ball at

Minute Maid Park

in years that they have video from I

want to search by left fielder I want to

focus on the left fielder and then

I got distance projected 248 to 252

because this ball that we're looking at

was 250 exit velocity

72-76 because this one was 74 and launch

angle 26 to 30 because this one was 28

or something like that so basically

What Happened

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