For a brief moment, it appeared as though the White Sox might've lucked into another big inning.
Trailing 5-0 in the seventh inning, the White Sox finally staged their first rally of the evening when Yoán Moncada hit a leadoff double off Alec Marsh, followed by an Andrew Vaughn dribbler that never rolled foul of the third-base line the way Maikel Garcia hoped.
Yasmani Grandal then appeared to have grounded into a rally-stunting 6-4-3 double play, but Bobby Witt Jr. threw wildly to second. Moncada scored, and the Sox still had runners on the corner with nobody out.
Up came Gavin Sheets, who delivered one of the big blows in the Sox's eight-run rally the night before. he fell behind 1-2, but laid off a sweeper before fouling off the next seven pitches. He took a fastball away to fill the count, but when Marsh fired one more fastball, it was a little too close to take, and Sheets swung under it for the strikeout.
Matt Quatraro came out to pull Marsh for James MacArthur, who got Elvis Andrus to ground into an inning-ending double play on his second pitch. A promising inning died quietly, and the Sox resumed their march toward losing both the individual series and the season series to the Royals.
Mike Clevinger took the loss because he gave up Michael Massey's 13th homer of the season, and the sixth against the White Sox. It was a two-run shot in the second inning, and it ended up producing all the runs the Royals needed.
They'd score more, just after Clevinger left. Aaron Bummer could only retire one of the three batters he faced, striking out Massey to start the inning, but then hitting and walking the next two batters. Lane Ramsey then allowed Bummer's two inherited runners to score on a single that glanced off Tim Anderson's glove and a sac fly that was set up by a walk to the batter before. Bummer's ERA is now an even 7.00.
Ramsey gave up a run of his own on a Salvador Perez single, which extended the inning and prompted Grifol to go to Sammy Peralta. He brought the seventh to a merciful end, but it summed up the state of the White Sox pitching staff. Clevinger handled the first six innings with relative ease, and then three White Sox pitchers were needed to complete the seventh inning alone.
The White Sox were subdued by Kansas City's opener strategy. Steven Cruz worked around hits in each of the first two innings, and then Marsh provided the bulk with four innings, getting the win for his efforts. The Sox were outhit 10-5, outwalked 3-2, and outplunked 1-0.
It's fitting that the White Sox lost the season series 7-6, even if they'll likely finish well ahead of the Royals in the AL Central when the season is over. Against teams they've faced multiple times in 2023, the Royals don't have a winning record against anybody else. Strength of schedule never applied to the White Sox, but other teams were sure relieved to see them.
