KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- It's always dispiriting when a program known for its originality starts losing some of its creative verve.
But with the Sox dropping their seventh game in Kauffman Stadium this year and seven tries and only padding their commanding league lead in blown saves in straightforward fashion, viewers would need to check their local listings to ensure this wasn't a rerun.
Staked to an impossibly slim 1-0 lead after six innings, Pedro Grifol turned to Justin Anderson to face the bottom of the Royals order. With the bullpen's egregious seventh inning struggles, Grifol acknowledged postgame he had considered using John Brebbia earlier just to avoid the critical mass of bad mojo. But his decision to use a journeyman against a weaker slate of hitters was validated, albeit in unenjoyable fashion.
Anderson lost the lead, but was merely intensely Royal'd (Infield single, chopped grounder through the hole, RBI safety squeeze for the tying run) in an otherwise competent inning of work and strike-throwing. It's that Brebbia was peppered for five hits in the eighth by the best contact-hitting home offense in the game--none for extra-bases--that verified that there were no alternate endings considered for this episode of 2024 White Sox baseball.
The White Sox offense absolutely cannot score; a fact which is intellectually understood but probably not fully grasped in terms of scale. Scoring three runs total this weekend put their season average at 3.13 runs per game, which is lower than any MLB team has finished the season at since the 1981 Toronto Blue Jays, who at least had a midseason strike to blame.
So no, the Sox bats did not too great against a guy who entered the day with a sub-2.50 ERA. Awash in early weak contact, Royals starter Seth Lugo did not throw his 60th pitch until the sixth inning, nor his 80th until the eighth. On his 58th, he made his most avoidable and costly mistake by plunking Nicky Lopez, setting in motion the rickety Rube Goldberg machine that has to function for the White Sox to score runs.
Only Lopez being in motion for a hit-and-run prevented him from being wiped out on a first-pitch Korey Lee groundout, and only there being two outs allowed Lopez to sprint on contact and score when Tommy Pham's flare cleared the infield over Bobby Witt Jr.'s leaping grasp. The breakthrough staked the Sox to a 1-0 lead--their first of the weekend--that would hold all the way until the literal first inning in which the bullpen as involved.
Lugo pitched more than well enough to win, and Royals manager Matt Quatraro made it as sure as possible he would be credited with it, sending him back out for the ninth even if it meant a fourth uneventful trip through the top of the White Sox order.
Watching Garrett Crochet at his best and then being asked if it's sustainable, is a little like being asked if a steamroller can be counted on to keep flattening pavement, or if it will eventually break down or simply require refueling. Where as Drew Thorpe's best starts since being promoted have been like watching someone hop and dance their way through Wario's Castle unscathed. It's just as impressive in its own way, but the main case for Thorpe being able to repeatedly generate in-between swings and pitch over control hiccups is that he keeps doing it.
This metaphor felt more apt over the first three innings, before Thorpe reached some level of turbo drive--if that label even fits for a man throwing a plurality of 82 mph changeups--and piled up the highest single-game of swinging strikes (18) of his brief major league career. But then it felt right again in the sixth, as he recovered from back-to-back one out singles to Witt and Vinnie Pasquantino to strike out Salvador Perez by doubling up on sliders, before inducing a threat-ending fly out from Hunter Renfroe to deliver a 1-0 lead to the Sox bullpen after six innings.
That's clearly no kind of proven formula for winning, but these kinds of performances explain how Thorpe is 3-1 despite...all this.
The rookie explained postgame that his slider was working so well that he was able to hold off on using his changeup to any right-handed hitters until the second turn through the order. That would explain the 'invasive species introduced to an unprepared new environment' nature of the swings that the Royals had at it.
Bullet points:
*Witt was 9-for-11 in this series. He might be the AL MVP, but does not bat .818 for the season, so it would seem like the Sox did not do the best job against him. (PRO TIP: Normally entering a fraction into the Google search bar is a quick way to get a percentage. But this is NOT true if the fraction you enter is "9/11")
*Lugo faced the minimum through the first three innings. The clock read 1:40pm when the top of the third ended, just a half hour after first pitch.
*Thorpe hit 93.5 mph on the gun, which was the hardest thrown pitch by a starter in this game. He won't win that battle often.
*Senzel is 0-for-7 in a White Sox uniform, and was pinch-hit for with Andrew Benintendi in the eighth.
