Those hoping Dylan Cease might be able to make one last stand with regards to his Cy Young hopes instead got another dose of his slow fade to the finish. He gave up a homer to Juan Soto in the first inning that answered Elvis Andrus' leadoff blast against Mike Clevinger, and while he recovered from early inefficiency to get through the next four inning scoreless, he hit a wall in the sixth.
Manny Machado greeted him with a single, and his attempt to bury a 1-2 slider in on Jake Cronenworth stayed up enough for Cronenworth to yank a homer into the first rows of seats in the right-field corner. That made it 3-1, and Cease ended up walking the final two batters of the season, one of which came around to score on Joe Kelly's watch.
He fell to 14-8, and his ERA rose to 2.20. Both of those are still remarkable, as is the fact that Cease has made 32 starts in each of the last two seasons, which can't be underappreciated given the rampant unavailability elsewhere throughout the roster. It just fell a little bit short of transcendent, and his pursuit of individual excellence was really all White Sox fans had left.
Otherwise, this game had three developments that very much captured what the White Sox must confront heading into the winter:
A righty mowing them down: The Cleveland version of Clevinger used to give the White Sox fits, and even though the post-surgery San Diego version of him hasn't reached those heights, the Sox couldn't tell the difference. Andrus homered on the second pitch of the game, after which he needed just 64 pitches to get through six innings.
A poetic home run: Manny Machado notched the fifth and final run with a solo shot off Jake Diekman. Machado now has 32 homers as he puts the finishing touches on another 7 WAR season. Rick Hahn can't get that kind of player, but he's great at getting somebody like Diekman, who has a 7.27 ERA as a member of this year's White Sox while making next year's team $3.5 million more expensive.
A spectacularly dumb baserunning mistake: Andrus was the White Sox's lone offensive bright spot, contributing three of the team's six hits and both of their RBIs. But with two outs in the eighth, with the tying run still on deck, Andrus was picked off second to end the inning, and it wasn't even close.
These are the White Sox we've seen too much of, and will get relief from after Wednesday.
