From the Locker Room: TA is Riding High at the Top of the Order

Can't bury the lede here, TA has a name for when Lucas Giolito is dealing: Bully Stage
From the Locker Room: TA is Riding High at the Top of the Order
From the Locker Room: TA is Riding High at the Top of the Order /

As the first guy to bat in one of the first playoff games in a 2020 season that so many felt would never be played and definitely never finish, it was business as usual for Tim Anderson.

"We was able to jump on them and start off with a win," he said. "Gotta come out again and do it tomorrow."

Anderson started the game with a hit, and added two more, snapping out of a slump that had plagued the last week of his regular season. Again, simple answer for that.

"This is the stage you want to be on, and perform in big games like this," the shortstop said.

But some of TA's most entertaining thoughts came in support of ace Lucas Giolito, who took a perfect game into the seventh inning for just the fifth time in postseason history.

"Dominant. He came out and was focused every pitch," Anderson said. "I expect that out of him. He threw a pretty good game ... He's unreal, it's unreal to watch and be behind it. He put the work in. The work is showing. I’m happy for him. He’s our guy."

Then, Anderson shared what he calls Giolito, when the ace gets on one of the rolls that spun him through most of game one: Bully Stage.

"The way he was throwing it, you can kind of read it on the mound," Anderson said. "He goes into a kind of bully stage. I know that's when he’s in his groove."

---

Tim Anderson footage courtesy of the Chicago White Sox.


Published
Brett Ballantini
BRETT BALLANTINI

Actor (final credit: murdered by Albert Einstein in "Carnage Hall"), musician (Ethnocentric Republicans), and Nerf hoops champion, Wiffleball aficionado and onetime bilingual kindergarten teacher, Brett Ballantini also writes about baseball, basketball and sometimes hockey, for the NBA, MLB, NHL, and Slam, Hoop, Sporting News, the Athletic, SB Nation and others. He was CSN Chicago’s Blackhawks beat writer when their 49-year Stanley Cup drought ended in 2009-10, and took over the White Sox beat after that. He currently is the editor-in-chief of South Side Hit Pen and beat writer for Inside the Rays. He also wrote a book about Ozzie Guillén but is running out of space, so follow him on Twitter @BrettBallantini and he'll probably tell you even more about himself than you ever wanted to know.