The White Sox (39-69) avoided the shutout, but still dropped the second game of the series to the Phillies (61-46) after a 6-3 loss. Philadelphia blanked the Good Guys for eight innings, and the offense was essentially non-existent until the bottom of the ninth inning, but by then it was too late.
Whatever I said earlier in the game thread about Jonathan Cannon’s ERA trending down, you can forget about it, because tonight definitely caused it to go back up. He worked through the first alright, which
is contrary to how his starts typically can go, and he did strike out Bryce Harper before everything turned into a mess.
Things went downhill fast, however, as the Phillies poured on six runs on seven hits through four innings: two in the second and another four in the third. The second inning began with Cannon walking Nick Castellanos to leadoff the inning — his second of the game — and was immediately followed up by a Brandon Marsh double to put runners on second and third. Both tallies scored in the frame were on back-to-back sacrifice flies from Max Kepler and Otto Kemp, and Michael A. Taylor came close to throwing Marsh out at home, but the ball took a weird hop off the grass on what otherwise looked like an excellent throw.
The third inning was sadly worse, as Trea Turner kicked off the inning with a double into the left-center gap to put himself into scoring position. He didn’t need to be in the end, as Kyle Schwarber flashed his power with a two-run shot that went nearly 115 mph off the bat and landed on the concourse near the Miller Lite Landing, traveling 441 feet. Just a couple of batters later, the Phillies did the same thing again, as J.T. Realmuto singled to get on base and Brandon Marsh smoked another two-run bomb to increase the White Sox's deficit to six.
On the other side of the ball, the South Side bats were nearly dormant and mustered only two knocks through seven innings against Jesús Lazardo, who needed a comeback game and got just that. Lenyn Sosa and Edgar Quero both racked up two hits in the contest, but two-thirds of the lineup were not able to get a hit.
Chicago threatened in the bottom of the first after Chase Meidroth reached on an error and Quero ripped a base hit to put two on with one out. Marsh made an excellent play on a fly ball from Miguel Vargas for the second out, likely robbing the Sox of a couple of runs.
A walk from Luis Robert Jr. helped extend the inning a bit and load up the bases for the hot-hitting lefty, Colson Montgomery. He was clearly frustrated after just missing the sweet spot and flying out to center, and it probably hurt a lot more after the six runs scored in the next two innings.
In another universe, Colson hits the grand slam, but unfortunately, the South Siders went three-up-three-down the next three innings, until Sosa ripped his first hit of the day to lead off the bottom of the fifth. Kyle Teel reached on an error just a couple of batters later, but nothing came of it, and they foiled once again. They fell right back into rhythm, going down in order for both the sixth and the seventh to put Lazardo in very nice positioning to get the win for Philly.
With the lack of offense since the third inning, the game honestly got pretty boring, and the White Sox held off the Phillies, but they weren’t doing anything for themselves to fix it. Tyler Gilbert handled the seventh just fine, even with a Schwarber double and a walk for a couple of unwanted baserunners, but he got out of it and finished his inning with a strikeout.
Dan Altavilla managed the final two innings for Chicago’s pitching staff, and he sat the Phillies down in order for just the second time all day in the eighth, giving up just one hit and striking out one. Overall, a solid day of work, yet extremely anti-climactic without the run support.
Philadelphia finally went to the bullpen in the eighth inning, and righthander Jordan Romano worked through the White Sox with no problem, as they went down in order for what felt like the millionth time of the day. The Good Guys showed up extremely late to the party and decided to start hitting the ball in the bottom of the ninth. Quero led off the inning with his second hit of the night, and Robert kept it going with a single down the right field line to put runners on first and third with one out. Colson Montgomery drove in the first run of the game on a slow roller to first base, and Lenyn Sosa capitalized on the situation by crushing his 10th homer of the season into the bullpen in left to make it 6-3, Philly.
Things felt like they were starting to get interesting as Mike Tauchman was coming in to pinch hit, and the Phillies' bullpen started to stir with two outs. Tauchman did get a good piece of the ball and drove a 106.5 mph line drive to center, but it was unfortunately right at Marsh, and Philadelphia was able to hold on and even the series at one.
Even with the ninth-inning rally, the South Siders could not convert with runners on and went 1-for-6 with runners in scoring position (Lenyn’s home run), and left five runners on base. The Phillies even helped out a bit with two lazy errors, but 60% of Chicago’s hits came in the last inning, which will, of course, make it significantly more difficult to win games.
They were probably due for a cold streak, so the fact that they showed some life at the end, even while down six, is definitely a step up from last year or even earlier this season. The White Sox will attempt to snag the series win tomorrow with game three starting at 1:10 p.m. CT on the South Side.
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