Doubleheader sweeps are tricky and labor-intensive to pull off, if only because it's hard to deploy your Plan A bullpen twice in a single day. You can't build the whole plane out of immaculate innings.
Michael Soroka is missing enough bats recently to still dream of playing a winning role on future pitching staffs. But his role on this one is starkly defined: when he pitches, the White Sox lose; 20 times out of his 21 appearances on the season. Half of those times, he's worn the decision, and half of those losses have managed to come even after he departed the rotation in early May.
As Byron Buxton greeted Soroka's entry to a 2-2 game in the seventh by serving a bloop into short right, racing out for a leadoff hustle double as Lenyn Sosa jogged after it, it was hard to shake off the feeling of narrative determinism taking hold. Soroka surely couldn't shake it off, as even an ideal sinker running up and in on Ryan Jeffers' hands was flared over Danny Mendick's head for the go-ahead RBI single.
With their Plan A bullpen very much available after a loss in the opener, Twins relievers held the Sox hitless over the final four innings to preserve a doubleheader split, and boost their mark in the season series to a spiffy 9-1.
If you've organically become an old crank, or are just beginning to tilt that way because you follow too many pitching development accounts on social media, the first five innings were some high-grade narrative fuel.
White Sox rookie Drew Thorpe seem disinclined to miss a bat nor crack 92 mph, but glided through five scoreless innings of one-hit ball on just 56 pitches and one strikeout. A wide, zone-filling mix of mostly not fastballs produced a lot of ineffectual contact, though a Luis Robert Jr.-shaped impression in the center field wall from Buxton's second inning flyout to center would suggest he had some defensive help.
On the other side of the ticket was Twins opening day starter Pablo López staking Thorpe to a 2-0 lead, and piling up 90 pitches in five innings to do so. López piled up 18 swinging strikes in that time, but Sosa's seeing-eye roller up the first base line, and Andrew Benintendi shanked double to the opposite end of the field were sequenced back-to-back for a run in the second. Apparently we also live in a country where you can't throw a first-pitch get-me-over curve to Martín Maldonado without watching it bounce off the top of the left field wall and over. Those clowns in Congress have really done it again.
The sixth inning would speak more to the perils of trying to get through an above-average lineup three times with pure pitchability, as Brooks Lee and Carlos Correa went back-to-back off Thorpe to erase a slowly built 2-0 lead in a couple minutes flat. But to the point of the old cranks, Thorpe got two more outs to finish up a quality start, and López was out after five.
To the point of White Sox ownership, Thorpe is making the league minimum and López is having a down season in the first year of a $73.5 million extension. So who are the real winners? Hmm? (The Twins are, the score is in the headline).
Bullet points:
*Maldonado's third inning solo shot gave him three homers in a span of eight at-bats. I don't understand what's happening and I'm scared.
*Lee and Thorpe were college roommates at Cal Poly. Maybe Thorpe talked about his love of running cutters in on the hands of lefties too much in the dorms.
*Thorpe is the first Sox starter ever to go six innings or more, and give up three hits or less AND two runs or less in four-straight starts.
*Soroka has shown some positive trends of recent, but the Sox have lost each of the last 17 games in which he's appeared. This isn't that unfamiliar fate for long relievers on last place teams, but it is still truly wild.
*Jake Eder warmed in the bullpen for a bit, but did not make his major league debut on this day.
*Eloy Jiménez has not homered since May 14. Because of injuries, that only encompasses 22 games, which for a bat-only player is still rather unideal.
