Cubs 7, White Sox 6: Dozenth straight loss a doozy

11:03 PM CDT on June 4, 2024

This is going to sound like an insult -- because it can't help but be one -- but the White Sox are very good at losing games. Through 10,000 hours of practice, they've been able to develop an uncommon artistry.

Tonight, they lost both a 5-0 lead, and later a 6-5 lead after Luis Robert Jr. dramatically put the White Sox back on top with a 448-foot blast in his first game back from the injured list. Justin Anderson continues to bounce between "important innings in Charlotte" to "important innings in Chicago" without the kind of low-leverage step in between, and Jordan Leasure's command problems carried into a fifth straight game.

We've seen that before, but what we hadn't seen was Oscar Colás of all people drawing an eight-pitch walk with one out to bring Duke Ellis into the game for his MLB debut for the role he was born to play: high-leverage pinch runner. He stole first base with a four-step jump on Hector Neris, but he couldn't time a second attempt successfully. Instead, Neris picked him off to send the inning from Dukelicious to Duketastrophe, and Corey Julks popped out to end the game.

It doesn't quite match the Andrew Vaughn interference call -- which was the second loss of a streak that now reaches a dozen -- on the WTF Meter, but it formed a new scar, and one where everybody will remember the story behind it.

Up until that point, the loss or more or less followed the recent formula. The White Sox staked a 5-0 lead against Shota Imanaga by taking advantage of a critical error by Christopher Morel to blow open the fourth inning. With runners on first and second and nobody out, Paul DeJong hit a bouncer to third base. Morel, perhaps with the thought of a triple play on his mind, tried to make a backhanded attempt while stepping on third base, but he instead deflected the ball underneath the padding of the dugout wall. Andrew Vaughn scored on the error, while the wedged ball allowed Luis Robert Jr. and DeJong to take an extra base.

When Gavin Sheets followed by popping up, Korey Lee bailed him out with a two-run double to left that gave the Sox a 3-0 lead. After Danny Mendick grounded out, Lenyn Sosa blistered a hanging 2-1 splitter into the left-field bleachers for a two-run shot that put the game out of a grand slam's reach.

Unfortunately, the Cubs could still tie it up with mulitiple homers, which happened in the sixth. Chris Flexen came back out after 50 minutes on the bench due to a rain delay and gave up a run after four shutout innings, but five innings of one-run ball is an acceptable outcome for any Flexen start, especially if it prevents the bullpen from having to handle more of the game.

In this case, four innings was still too many for the relief corps. Anderson retired the first two batters of the sixth, but then he plunked Cody Bellinger on the shin with a 1-2 slider, and all hell broke loose. A hanging slider to Morel went over the left-field wall to make it a 5-3 game, and even switching to Tanner Banks didn't reverse the momentum. He lost a lefty-lefty battle to Ian Happ, and Patrick Wisdom followed up the base hit with a game-tying two-run shot.

Robert tried to restore the rules of order with a two-out homer of his own in the top of the seventh, but while John Brebbia was able to retire the bottom of the North Side lineup in order, Leasure had problems with the heart of it. While Gavin Sheets made one of the better catches of his career to take extra bases away from Miguel Amaya in the seventh, and then flagged down Seiya Suzuki's drive into the right-field corner to start the eighth, the Cubs eventually found success in that direction.

Once again, a free pass to Bellinger set it up -- this time in the form of a walk. Leasure got a ground ball from Morel, but it was too far to Paul DeJong's left to start a double play, and even his glove-flip to Danny Mendick had too much air on it, allowing Bellinger to slide in ahead of it for an infield single. Up came Happ, who found the spot in right field that Sheets hadn't blanketed, and that two-run double decided the game.

Bullet points:

*Robert went 2-for-4 with a strikeout in his return to action, with the other hit a bloop single.

*Sosa went 2-for-3 with a walk in one of his best performances. The one out was a 107.2 mph lineout, but that offsets the luck from his 24.2 mph squibber that turned into an infield single.

*That infield single was erased by a Martín Maldonado double play ball. Maldonado went 0-for-3 with a strikeout, and is now hitting .076 with a .244 OPS.

*The White Sox have a chance to tie their franchise record for consecutive losses Wednesday night.

*Ellis handled the questions about as well as he possibly could.