The White Sox held a 3-2 lead in the seventh with two outs when a routine fly ball to left became chaos. A soft liner off Jeremy Peña’s bat dropped in front of Andrew Benintendi, who seemed frozen as everyone expected an easy third out. Instead, the ball fell in, extending the inning. Benintendi appeared confused, glancing back toward the wall as if he lost track of his positioning near Minute Maid Park’s quirky Crawford Boxes. A look at his alignment showed he had shaded too far toward center, giving himself too much ground to cover on a bloop hit. With two outs and a slow runner at first, a dive could have made sense, but he didn’t go for it.
Digging deeper, a comparison with similar plays showed Benintendi had fielded two nearly identical balls cleanly, both in better positioning with shorter routes. One even came earlier in this same game. The issue looked like a combination of field placement and a ball hit slightly further from his usual coverage zone. The play kept the inning alive and set up trouble. Alex Bregman walked to load the bases, forcing a pitching change. In came a new reliever to face Yordan Alvarez, the last guy any team wants to see in that spot. Alvarez smoked a fastball to left-center. Benintendi sprinted after it, but had no chance. It cleared the bases and flipped the game. Defensive positioning and one hesitant step changed everything.