It was just a meaningless preseason game, wasn’t it?
And yet, something about White Sox left fielder Eloy Jimenez’s first-inning grand slam off Cubs pitcher Yu Darvish a few days ago at Guaranteed Rate Field felt bigger than that.
To some, it may even have signified a shift of baseball power in this city from North Side to South Side. When you add Jimenez’s exciting rise, Darvish’s ongoing struggles and fellow Cubs pitcher Jose Quintana’s ridiculous dish-washing injury together, it certainly plays into a couple of early-season story lines:
One, the Sox, with Jimenez — the jewel of the 2017 trade of Quintana — and so many other young, talented, enticing pieces, are ready to win.