Chris Flexen owns a 5.79 ERA over his now franchise-record 17-start streak without earning a victory, so he's not exactly the perfect tragic figure. But the 2024 White Sox true innovation is how they have coalesced so many garden-variety replacement-level performances into infamy.
In only eight of the 17 games has Flexen taken the loss himself, and Saturday night's defeat to seal a crosstown season series sweep followed the proven formula of a collection of below-average showings forming a more putrid whole.
After an encouraging bit of single-inning high-leverage work in Oakland, Chad Kuhl led off the eighth inning of a 1-1 game with baseball's original sin: a leadoff walk of Nico Hoerner. And you really get a feel for why pitchers so loath free passes when the game gets away without anything else really blame-worthy happening. Dansby Swanson turned things into a full-on crisis by following the walk with an infield single that never reached the dirt. After a Pete-Crow Armstrong sacrifice bunt, No. 9 hitter Miguel Amaya plated two decisive runs with a flare over a drawn-in infield that probably wouldn't get pulled over for speeding on the Indiana Toll Road.
For a Sox offense that scores around three runs per game, overcoming a 3-1 deficit requires an above-average night. After scoring six runs in front of a packed house on Friday, the third sellout crowd of the season was treated to more typical fare.
Flexen pieced together four scoreless innings in the most "Forget it, he's rolling" manner possible. He walked four, induced eight fly outs on an August night at Sox park, and recorded his only strikeout by doubling up low-70s looping curves to Ian Happ to end the fourth. His walks were also clustered. Flexen pitched over a pair of free passes in the first, and walked the bases loaded and even ran the count to 3-0 against Hoerner in the third before one of his patented scary-looking deep fly outs ended the threat.
In each case of ball-itis, his initial flurry of being unable to spot his fastball was followed by a more intentional-looking mistake-avoidant approach. Flexen is a below-average starter who lacks swing-and-miss stuff and rarely breaks 93 mph. The 2024 White Sox are the team for which a four-inning scoreless start has the least utility, but whenever he makes it multiple trips through a major league order without any damage to speak of, you sort of have to hand it to him.
"I know every time you’re not going to have your ‘A’ stuff, but felt worse than normal," Flexen said postgame. "I don’t think it’s anything abnormal, just felt out of whack mechanically and just really struggling to find the zone."
Speaking of handing it to people, the Sox defense rendered Flexen's work moot just an inning later.
Jared Shuster recorded two quick outs in the fifth, before a Cody Bellinger single was followed by an archetypal Isaac Paredes double to the left field corner. A send of Bellinger really pushed the principle of "always test Andrew Benintendi's arm" to absurdity, to the point that when Brooks Baldwin received the relay throw just as Bellinger was reaching the third base bag, the rookie infielder never even looked to Korey Lee at the plate, arms outstretched in desperation. Whatever screams to throw home from Baldwin's exasperated teammates registered too late as Bellinger slid in without a throw, and cameras caught Cubs players laughing at replays of the gaffe on their tablets in the dugout and a few Sox coaches entering the early (or perhaps given this season, very advanced) stages of angina.
"It got pretty loud during that time," Baldwin said. "As quick as [Benintendi] got to it in the corner and got it to me, I peeked, and when I peeked [Bellinger] was halfway to third. So, in the back of my mind I was like there's no way he's going to get sent here, so I'm going to look to the back door and see if there's a play at second. It just so happened that he sent him."
"I couldn't hear anything," Grady Sizemore said. "I think even if [third baseman Miguel Vargas] was screaming for it, [Baldwin] wouldn't have heard it."
That boondoggle erased a 1-0 lead the built upon a Hoerner error on a Vargas slow roller in the second. Lee used the opportunity to move Vargas into scoring position with the one solid hit of the inning, setting up Baldwin to drive home the only Sox run of the night with a targeted bloop into short left-center. Little did we know it was a Baldwin giveth, Baldwin taketh situation.
The breakthrough didn't inspire a ton of confidence in the Sox offense's ability to get to Justin Steele, and sure enough, he went six innings without allowing an earned run nor an extra-base hit.
Bullet points:
*Luis Robert Jr. stranded three runners in scoring position in what you can only hope is the worst slump of his life. Two of those runners were stranded via a 103 mph fly out to the warning track in center, but he struck out in his other four plate appearances, including while representing the tying run at the plate in the ninth.
"He's thinking too much up there," said Sizemore, who offered that being part of trade rumors all summer has worn on Robert. "Any time you think you might be gone and you're not sure, it's going to mess with your head. We're all human. It's going to happen."
*Lee has struggled offensively for the last few months, but at least he hates the Cubs. He went 6-of-16 in the crosstown series and had a hit in all four games against the Northsiders.
*The bottom of the ninth was delayed for several minutes as two fans rushed onto the field. One evaded security for a bit with a couple of heady uses of a hesitation move, but showed little ability to gain yards after contact. The second interloper seemed injury upon entry to the playing field, and literally had to be carted off. What a season.
