If the White Sox are planning on losing for most of the rest of the season, at least they're starting by making it quick.
After selling off more than a quarter of the team at the trade deadline, the White Sox opened the remainder of the schedule with their fastest game of the year: a 2-0 shutout that lasted just 1 hour, 58 minutes.
The White Sox traded nearly half of their ideal 13-man pitching staff this week, and the problem remains the offense.
Jesse Scholtens threw six strong innings, with the sole costly mistake a center-cut fastball that Mitch Garver turned into a solo shot. That turned out to be enough for the Rangers, who also added an Adolís García solo shot off Declan Cronin in the seventh for added measure.
The White Sox, meanwhile, tallied just three singles and drew zero walks while striking out 16 times against Andrew Heaney and three Texas relievers.
They only provided a legit scare in the fourth, when Tim Anderson led off with a single. Two batters later, Luis Robert Jr. redirected a misplaced 2-1 changeup 109.1 mph and 410 feet to right-center. Unfortunately at Globe Life Park, there's a little outfield cutout where Leody Taveras could await it, and a ball that Statcast said would've been a homer in 21 of 30 parks was merely a long flyout.
That was the only scare, so Scholtens got saddled with the hard-luck loss despite lasting a career-long six innings. He wasn't particularly overwhelming, but he sat 93-94 with a fastball, and because the Rangers didn't sustain long threats, he was able to proceed according to the script by introducing sliders, then saving the curveball for the third time through. It earned him another start, not that there's a whole lot of competition right now.
