This game somehow kept getting worse.
One might've thought it would've found a way to plateau after Dylan Cease gave up three homers over 4⅔ innings. Perhaps the misery would have peaked when Jimmy Cordero suspiciously plunked Willson Contreras on his first pitch a few innings after Contreras punctuated a homer with a two-story bat flip.
But nope. In the ninth, Yolmer Sánchez took the mound and gave up a second homer to Contreras on the very first pitch of his career. He also gave up a double to right-handed Javier Báez, which is only notable because Báez hit lefty. It almost compounded with Sánchez goofing up a pop-up when he wouldn't let Yoán Moncada call him off, but Moncada caught the deflection and flipped to second for the double play, as Báez lost track of the outs.
If nothing else, it was a fitting way to wrap up the White Sox's run-prevention efforts, because everybody looked checked out before they actually stopped trying. The Cubs scored in seven of nine innings, and the White Sox didn't cross the plate in a single one of theirs. Had a real pitcher handled the ninth, I would've pointed to the eighth inning as a sign of the game's continual decline. Luis Robert made an incredibly cool running catch and casual flip home to get Victor Caratini at the plate by three steps, and Yasmani Grandal's fussy mitt still barfed up the ball.
Cordero's ejection stood at the center of this game, because it proved how much the White Sox have lost their composure.
Everybody expected to see some residual tension from having Angel Hernandez's umpiring crew handle a third White Sox series out of the last four, but while Dan Bellino's strike zone was again wide and uneven, it was lopsided in the White Sox's favor.
Looking at the Statcast zones for objectively bad strike/ball calls, the White Sox had a net loss of two strikes at the plate. Cubs hitters had a net loss of four strikes against them. Compared to his previous work in Sox games against the Twins and Indians, Bellino's zone was airtight.
Nevertheless, when Bellino called for umpires to confer after Cordero's first-pitch fastball found Contreras' jersey number and decided to oust Cordero from the game, Renteria followed suit with his third ejection in the last five games, and Don Cooper got the boot as well.
In previous seasons, one might quibble with an ejection without warnings, but in the COVID-19 season where players are suspended for contactless jawing, swift judgments should be expected. Hell, we've seen warningless ejections from umpires during seasons without an active pandemic, so the fact that the umpires took a moment for a conference before heaving Cordero looks somewhat generous.
Besides, these are the #ChangeTheGame White Sox. They're supposed to be cool with outward displays of emotions. If Tim Anderson had fired his bat and skipped to first after a no-doubter and received an Adbert Alzolay fastball to the hip his next time up, the White Sox would be demanding an immediate removal regardless of intent.
But Anderson didn't have that moment. Nobody did. Yu Darvish and two Cubs relievers combined to throw a three-hitter, so they had to settle for the weak form of revenge. They've now lost six straight, and with the Indians rallying to defeat Pittsburgh, the White Sox have plummeted from sole possession of first place into a tie for second.
- Minnesota, 35-22
- White Sox, 34-24Indians, 34-24
The road theoretically gets easier with Jon Lester on the mound Saturday, the first lefty starter the White Sox have seen since Sept. 5. After seeing their losing streak extend to six games with increasingly embarrassing methods, competence can't be assumed.
Bullet points:
*Cease gave up all three of his homers on fastballs. He was relatively aggressive in the strike zone, with 50 strikes out of 84 pitches, so he failed in a different way compared to his last two times out. He either needs to take the fastball into the garage, or he needs to get comfortable with throwing his slider more.
*Grandal also had a dropped third strike on Gio Gonzalez's watch.
*Jace Fry should have gotten out of the seventh unscored upon, but he bounced a routine throw to first that José Abreu couldn't handle, and Contreras ended up scoring. Abreu threw out Báez at second, the first of his two TOOTBLANs on the night.
*Anderson made a cool play with a leaping snag of a liner, so there's that.
*Robert snapped an 0-for-29 slump with a single through the right side.
