After playing their longest nine-inning game of the year the night before, the White Sox played one of their shortest. Instead of combining for 21 runs on 22 hits, they the White Sox and Mets only totaled six on eight tonight.
Each team only had one chance at a big inning tonight. The Mets converted on their opportunity, and the White Sox did not.
Touki Toussaint served one purpose by pitching six innings, but a fourth-inning control lapse buried him. He opened that frame by walking Pete Alonso on four pitches and clipping Jeff McNeil, followed by a Francisco Alvarez single through the right sided that gave the Mets a 2-0 lead.
Toussaint then walked Daniel Vogelbach to load the bases, and while he got Brett Baty to hit a chopper to short, it developed too slowly for anything beyond a force at second base for an RBI fielder's choice. Another productive out on a sac fly made it 4-0, and Brandon Nimmo's opposite-field double made it five.
Take that inning out of the equation, and the game would've been a simple exchange of solo shots, Baty in the third against Luis Robert Jr. in the seventh.
Robert's blast was the first real sign of life the Sox showed against Justin Verlander, and it appeared the Sox might be able to sustain something beyond it when Jake Burger drew a borderline walk. Yasmani Grandal popped out, but Gavin Sheets kept the inning alive with an infield single to bring Carlos Pérez to the plate. Alas, Pérez struck out, and the Sox's best chance died.
Verlander cruised to his 23rd career win against the White Sox, throwing just 100 pitches over eight innings, with 76 for strikes. He gave up a handful of hard-hit balls, but oftentimes they merely accelerated the end of an inning, including a six-pitch third and a five-pitch sixth.
Even with the ugly fourth, Toussaint was fine relative to expectations. He allowed Pedro Grifol to use only Jesse Scholtens the rest of the way. Moral victories just don't resonate much when the team is back to a season-worst 17 games under .500. Eventually the deadline moves will tell everybody how the front office expects the team to perform the rest of the way, but the White Sox dropped to 4-9 in a do-or-die month, leaving everybody to watch the clock with regards to the latter outcome.
Bullet points:
*Oscar Colás made a handful of tough catches in right. He might've made them look a little harder than they were, but he passed every test on sinking liners in front of him to drives that sent him back to the track.
*Verlander threw 30 pitches in the seventh inning, meaning he needed just 70 for the other seven.
