One win a series is about the best the 2023 White Sox can do in September. Or it's as much as they're willing to do. You make the call.
The White Sox fell to 4-12 this month as they play out the string, and 0-5 in series since they dropped three out of four to the Twins.
After avoiding the sweep with Saturday's victory, Pedro Grifol sat Luis Robert Jr., Yoán Moncada and Tim Anderson (after a three-hit day), and the lineup looked the part. When Trayce Thompson took Emilio Pagán's full-count fastball off the plate with two outs in the ninth, it represented the first White Sox walk, as well as the first time they had multiple baserunners.
Five pitches later, Lenyn Sosa struck out to end the game.
Sonny Gray more or less worked over this White Sox lineup, holding them to five hits while striking out six over seven innings, and needing just 81 pitches to do so. The White Sox had two decent scoring opportunties against him, and Gray shut them down quickly both times.
In the fourth, Andrew Benintendi took third on Andrew Vaughn's one-out flyout to right, but Eloy Jiménez expanded the zone and struck out on four pitches, and Gavin Sheets flied out to end the frame. With an identical situation in the sixth -- only with Elvis Andrus taking Benintendi's place on the basepaths --- Vaughn expanded the zone on a four-pitch strikeout, and Jiménez popped out on the first pitch.
The White Sox went 0-for-8 with runners in scoring position on the afternoon.
Dylan Cease was almost as tough on the Twins, but they made their best inning count.
Cease had retired eight in a row before Ryan Jeffers singled to left with one out in the fifth. Up came Kyle Farmer, who fell behind 1-2, but then took a good slider just off the plate, and a fastball a little farther outside to load the count. Farmer then spoiled a fringe fastball high and a slider low, then benefited from a missed call by Sean Barber on a slider that caught the upper, outer corner of the zone.
In Barber's defense, he might not have had a clean look at it because Korey Lee sprang up throwing to second with a runner in motion ...
... but what should've been a strike-him-out-throw-him-out double play turned into a three-run homer when Edouard Julien redirected a full-count, middle-middle fastball over the left-field wall for a 3-0 Twins lead.
Cease ended up throwing his first quality start in six tries, but he still suffered a loss to fall to 7-8 on the season. Luis Patiño saved Grifol trips to the mound by throwing the final three innings, giving up a solo shot to Jorge Polanco, but nothing more that counted.
Bullet points:
*Lenyn Sosa was charged with a tough error when he throw from foul territory behind third base pulled Andrew Vaughn off the bag. I wouldn't be surprised if that were overturned later.
*Sosa, Zach Remillard and Korey Lee went 0-for-11 with three strikeouts at the bottom of the order with three strikeouts. Lee's average is down to .065.
*The Twins outwalked the White Sox 18-3 over four games.
*The White Sox finished the season 4-9 against the Twins, but 8-5 against the Guardians, which accounts for more than half of the Twins' seven-game lead.
*The AL Central portion of the White Sox's schedule has concluded. The Sox went 23-29 against the worst division in baseball. You could say they didn't get the benefit of playing themselves, or you could say they played themselves every day.
