Something really disturbing happened in the final weekend before the All-Star break; a three-game home sweep at the hands of the Pirates. A miserable White Sox team already on pace to be the worst in franchise history seemed to be experiencing a notable drop off in quality of play. What nadirs were possible if there were deeper wells of putridity from which to draw?
Oh, if only we still had the naïveté of mid-July 2024.
There's a bullet point section at the end of these pieces, so there's a real risk of overusing the format. But the first two innings of Tuesday night's game lent themselves less to narrative description and more to listing misdeeds:
- Andrew Vaughn rolling over a curveball to strand Andrew Benintendi at second, his 25th-straight hitless at-bat
- Benintendi and Luis Robert Jr. almost colliding on an inning-ending fly out
- Korey Lee getting picked off first
- Two wild pitches, including one that cleared the back wall
- Four total pitches to the backstop
- Six walks, five of which happened in the second inning
- Benintendi and Miguel Vargas actually colliding a on would-be inning-ending fly out
- Three unearned runs allowed, as the bases were loaded with two outs when said collision occurred
- Vargas staying in the game briefly despite looking like he had taken a tire iron to his right eye
- 72 Nick Nastrini pitches to record five outs
- Seven total runs allowed
- Vargas leaving the game with what the team termed as a "right eye abrasion"
1962 New York Mets, prepare to be erased from history. And soon.
To be fair, Nastrini didn't huck one to the back wall until he was over 20 pitches into the first. Without Gunnar Henderson fouling off a nasty full count slider before doubling on an ever lower one to lead off his night, and a few weird early Hunter Wendelstedt calls going against him, there's a parallel universe where Nastrini stabilizes before the Orioles pounce upon him.
But when Nastrini's command is just one of 17 items of the White Sox path to victory that's balancing on a razor's edge, there just isn't much grace to extend. He couldn't command his fastball above the belt, his changeup wasn't close enough to be a factor and man shall not live upon sliders alone. Somewhere along Nastrini walking four in a five-batter span in the second, ambitions lowered from four usable frames to Jared Shuster gets to enter at the start of an inning, and yet he still fell an out short.
The pitching and defensive disasters distracted from the 16th shutout loss of the year, from the least productive offense that's been seen in Major League Baseball since 1972. Sox hitting is seriously threatening to average fewer than three runs per game, and The Godfather was in theaters the last time that happened.
Seemingly on his way out of the Orioles rotation, rookie left-hander Cade Povich filleted White Sox batters for 7 1/3 shutout innings. When the biggest scoring threat--a ground ball single by Lenyn Sosa followed by an infield hustle single by Jacob Amaya--is felled by Henderson making an over-the-shoulder grab on Corey Julks' two-out bloop to short center in the fifth, it feels like there's more than Wendelstedt to blame.
Jairo Iriarte made his major league debut in the bottom of the fifth, because it was already garbage time by then. He walked a pair, allowed a run on a bases loaded sacrifice fly to deep left, and had a hard time going three pitches in a row without a wild misfire. But Brian Bannister is right, it is just kind of fun to watch him move.
Iriarte touched 96 mph multiple times with plenty of life on all his pitches, and even got Henderson to go around on one of those wild misfired sliders. Climbing the ladder on a full count heater to Colton Cowser allowed him to strand two runners, end his inning with his first career strikeout and exit on a high note.
It's amazing that anyone in a White Sox uniform was capable of such.
Sosa, Amaya and Zach DeLoach let a high pop in a similar spot as The Vargas Event drop for a hit in the bottom of the eighth, but without a collision. That feels like development, if not necessarily in the correct direction.
Bullet points:
*Garrett Crochet doesn't deserve to be lumped into this, but Nastrini's early exit means the White Sox haven't had a starter get through the fourth inning in any of their last three games, while in the midst of stretch of effectively nine games in eight days.
*Eloy Jiménez briefly got to experience being on the other side of a White Sox collision/error/injury when he popped into The Vargas Event in the second. But just when he thought he was out, Jared Shuster drilled him in the ear flap of his batting helmet on a rushed throw to first in the fourth.
*Vaughn snapped his 0-for-25 skid with a solid single in the fourth. Good for Andrew!
*Brooks Baldwin played his first game in a week, taking the place of Vargas. A bunt attempt in his first at-bat wasn't a firm endorsement of how his right hand is feeling, but a deep fly out to center in his second trip provided a better feeling.
*Luis Robert Jr. went 0-for-4 with two strikeouts for his fourth hitless game in his last five.
*Yoán Moncada homered in Charlotte while Bryan Ramos extended his hitting streak to 15 games, which is to say that neither was subbed out early on Vargas' behalf.
*Grady Sizemore got ejected for the first time as an interim manager, arguing balls and strikes in the sixth. Wendelstedt earned it. Benintendi got ejected in the same at-bat that spurred the conflict, two pitches and another questionable call later. Again, Wendelstedt got his money's worth. Not sure if anyone else did, but White Sox fans have been squeezed all season.
