As long as the White Sox can't win a series -- and they haven't since Independence Day -- it's hard to assign any greater purpose to individual victories. As a Major League Baseball team, they're guaranteed to win the occasional game.
However, because they White Sox are stretching the bounds of how infrequent "occasional" can be, every September triumph has the zero-sum nature of being a costly blow to a team harboring actual ambitions, as evidenced by the reaction in Boston to their 7-2 victory on Sunday, which came down to a five-run ninth.
In most cases, taking two out of three games in a series is acceptable. Expecting to sweep a fellow major league team is unreasonable.
The Chicago White Sox are a glaring exception to that rule this season. [...]
With his team fighting to stay in postseason contention, Red Sox manager Alex Cora acknowledged before the game that winning was mandatory.
“They have some capable guys, but you have to win,” he said. “We are in this position because we struggled for a month and a half. We’ve just got to win.”
That’s what made a 7-2 loss so painful and why the crowd of 29,110 was booing as the Red Sox allowed five runs in the ninth inning.
Meanwhile, the Boston Herald's account shows how the White Sox have the potential of creating significant rifts in their wake:
“I don’t know if I gave up a ball over 90 (mph),” Kelly said. “A couple were mid-70s exit velo, and yeah, just unlucky and obviously I didn’t make pitches when I needed to but I’ve pitched worse than that and given up zero runs.”
It is true the hardest contact Kelly allowed in the inning was just 90 mph, but Cora offered a much more pointed assessment following the game. The Red Sox manager said Kelly’s poor outing boiled down to “lack of execution” and that he needs to become more consistent.
“With that stuff we expect more. We want him to be like a big dog in the bullpen, that’s the reason he pitched the ninth, because stuff-wise there’s not too many guys like him,” Cora said. “But you’ve got to be consistent, that’s the most important thing, and there’s a few things he needs to work on to accomplish that.”
Alas, the chances for such spoiling get increasingly sparse over the rest of the season. The White Sox will get a decent chance tonight when the Guardians are recalling Joey Cantillo from Triple-A Columbus with the touted benefit of an easier assignment, but after the Guardians leave town, the Padres and Tigers are the only other teams with postseason aspirations, and the Tigers could be eliminated by the final weekend of the season.
Spare Parts
Michael Baumann isolates some performances against the White Sox to see which players would really hurt for expunging the records, and comes away pointing out that the other 29 teams have a wRC+ of 117 against them, which turns an ordinary player into a fringe All-Star at the right position.
It's understandable why Josh Barfield would emphasize that current success stories like the Orioles and Diamondbacks also experienced miserable times in recent memory, but it rings hollow when the comparisons are limited to their lowest moments, and not any immediately identifiable paths toward improvement. It's like comparing Miguel Vargas to George Brett, but only in terms of continence.
One way the White Sox are fortunate this season? They won't be exposed to any early issues in moving their broadcasts from NBC Sports Chicago to the Chicago Sports Network. That's a problem for the Blackhawks and Bulls, and Scott Powers offers a semi-update on the progress:
CHSN’s initial press release says “the network will launch with agreements in place with traditional cable providers, streaming services and be available via free, over-the-air broadcast.”
Earlier this week, The Athletic contacted a CHSN spokesperson who said they planned to have an update “shortly.”
You'll have to keep scrolling to find the White Sox, who rank 29th in Kiley McDaniel's system due to a lack of elite contributors and only two plus ones (Garrett Crochet and Luis Robert Jr.) at either the MLB or minor league levels.
- Whit Merrifield rips state of pitching in MLB after HBP -- ESPN
- Whit Merrifield seeks changes for HBPs -- MLB.com
Whit Merrifield had a rough start to his September, first getting hit in the head with a fastball, then breaking his foot with a foul ball. Regarding the former, he said the MLB Competition Committee will produce a new rule that penalizes pitchers for especially dangerous/damaging HBPs, along the lines of the way the NFL can review targeting, and NBA flagrant fouls. This topic has come up before -- I remember Alex Rios expressing frustration about wildness from September call-ups back in 2015 -- so these sentiments have had time to marinate.
The Twins have lost all steam in the AL Central after suffering a weekend sweep in Kansas City. They're now five games behind the Guardians and 2½ back of the Royals, and their cushion for the final wild card spot has dropped to 3½ games.
The effort apparently sent Baldelli over the edge. After forcing players to sit in silence for several minutes, Baldelli entered the room and lit into his club like never before. Catcher Ryan Jeffers said it’s the angriest he’s seen Baldelli in four seasons together, and he appreciated the effort.
“He’s tried the rah-rah (speech) and the pump-up,” Jeffers said. “It was time for that. Maybe now is the time for the kick in the ass.”
