Sports highlights: another walkoff (the first by the Giants' Joe Panik), Chicharito scored

Just wrote about a walkoff hit by the former Giant (current White Sox) Melky Cabrera earlier this week. Now I'm writing about a walkoff hit (a sac-fly) by the current Giant Joe Panik in bot 9th last night. And it happened at the game we attended on Wednesday (club level seats thanks to Jenny!) Unlike the lopsided 12-0 A's vs Mariners game, this one was a nail-biter featuring the best-of-the-best pitchers in the game: WS MVP Madison Bumgarner and regular season MVP/Cy Young Clayton Kershaw. Both teams indeed pitched really well in the game, giving up only 2 runs each for 8 innings. (Dodger's 2-run homer was pretty much the only mistake made by MadBum) My son was particularly impressed by Santiago Casilla, who kept throwing strikes in the beginning of the 9th.

Also happy to see the A's beating their SoCal rival Angel's with another lopsided victory: 9-2. And the White Sox earned its victory earlier in the day as well. Seems like both Samardzija and Abreu responded to my criticism earlier. The former pitched a good one and the latter hit a homer. Go Giants, A's and White Sox!

Last but not least, the former Man U forward (though mostly on the bench) Chicharito got a rare start at his new team, Real Madrid (who is even more star-studded than Man U, especially for his position) in the very important Champions League quarter-final match against rival Atletico Madrid because of injuries to the regular starters. According to the stats quoted by sports websites, he scored 1 goal per 105 min on average given how rare he plays. I joked that he might be able to score in this game if he played many minutes and he did! Good for him!

Sports highlights: the Melk man walked off

I have been a long-time White Sox fan and no doubt the past few years have been disappointing. There were moments of brilliance from the players at times and that's about it. From what I read, there were lots of expectation on this 2015 team because of the "big additions" of starting pitcher Jeff Samardzija, closer David Robertson, and sluggers Adam LaRoche and Melky Cabrera. Not from me though 'coz I feel that these players probably are more well-known than they should be based on what they have achieved already (the Melk man did contribute to the early success of the Giants who eventually won the WS but he was suspended in mid-season that year. Samardzija really hasn't done enough to push any of his team over the hump. And I wasn't the only one who said so.) And I'm afraid the lone brightspot, Jose Abreu, last year's rookie of the year, might experience sophomore-jinx.

So, unlike those with high hopes, I'm not surprised to see the poor start early this season. Nevertheless, it's good to see that the players have the fighting spirit and be more optimistic, like what Melky Cabrera said on Monday. And he backed up his words with actions that night. The Sox was down 0-3 to the Indians in the bottom of the 9th but they didn't give up. They got on base patiently and slowly climb back to tie the game (with RBIs from Alexei Ramirez and Gordon Beckham) Finally, the Melk man delivered a game-winning bases-loaded RBI single!