Dylan Cease had two rough innings, which isn't good. It's worse when he didn't complete four.
Only one was of his doing. His night started with two unimposing grounders that turned into two baserunners on an infield single and Yoán Moncada bouncing a 5-4-3 ball to second. Michael Brantley then cleared the bases with a three-run blast that put the White Sox in a huge hole before they recorded an out.
The other rough inning was the fourth, which was the same inning where he suddenly encountered issues in his previous dud at Yankee Stadium. He'd retired nine in a row entering the inning, but he lost his feel for the strike zone, opening with a walk and an HBP on a three-ball count. He fell behind 3-0 to Carlos Correa, who hit a run-scoring ground-rule double. He fell behind 2-0 and 3-1 to Abraham Toro, who delivered a two-run single.
Just like that, Cease had once again given up three runs before the first out of an inning, and the first out -- a nine-pitch strikeout of Myles Straw -- was all he could notch. He followed that with a walk to Jason Castro, and out came Tony La Russa to take advantage of his nine-man bullpen.
The White Sox had no such answer for José Urquidy, who posed two problems as 1) a right-handed pitcher who 2) located well. He threw a whopping 69 of 93 pitches for strikes, forcing the White Sox to hit their way into trouble, and they never could. He allowed just four hits and a walk over seven innings, striking out five.
A Brian Goodwin leadoff double led to a two-run seventh, with Adam Engel and José Abreu both delivering RBI singles in hopes of staging a late rally like the one they'd just staved off against Tampa Bay. Alas, Matt Foster gave up a pair of homers in a pair of innings in a rare outing that probably won't encourage future work.
Bullet points:
*The loss was the most lopsided one of the season for the White Sox, and just the second time they allowed 10+ runs in a game.
*Gordon Beckham joined Jason Benetti during Steve Stone's planned vacation and sounded comfortable. Maybe a little too comfortable, as both indulged each other's goofy sense of humor before the game got out of hand.
In their defense, they weren't in the ballpark for the game, which affects their connection to the actual events. And eventually some of the insight you'd want to see from a recently retired ballplayer made its way into the broadcast.
*Yermín Mercedes went 0-for-4 with two strikeouts. In Beckham's best moment of the broadcast, he gave a mechanical assessment for Mercedes' timing issues:
"I know he's struggling a little bit. I see -- it's almost like, when he was going real good, he was really getting into that back, back side, that back knee with a little bend, you know? It seems like he's just losing his back side a little bit and kinda guessing, like sliding towards the pitcher a little bit versus waiting on it. [Mercedes leans over to watch a pitch outside] Right there, he's just a little jumpy. It's almost like he thinks he's late, and so he's trying to get his body in position to do something quicker than he has to. He's a little sped up."
Beckham went on to suggest Mercedes settle for right field in future at-bats, just to see whether that would recalibrate him and allow him to regain his natural strength to the pull field. Beckham mentioning Mercedes' fear of being late could also reinforce the fear of a slider-speed bat, but it was nice to Beckham's background being applied in a way that Stone might not cover.
