John Schriffen and Steve Stone spent what seemed like 98% of their TV broadcast talking about the big final home game jackpot instead of the game itself, which was probably a good idea, given the play of the team that employs them.
Let us venture through the key innings of offense:
The first: Chase Meidroth hit by a pitch, Kyle Teel walk on four pitches that weren’t remotely close, Colson Montgomery K, Miguel Vargas 5-4-3 DP. Note the pattern of two on, none out, no advances, let alone runs. The memory
will come in handy.
The second, down 2-0 in part because of a pickoff attempt sent into right field: Edgar Quero single (which would turn out to be the only Sox base hit harder than 86 mph), Brooks Baldwin walk on five pitches, Lenyn Sosa K, Will Robertson pop-up, Dominic Fletcher routine fly out. Getting the picture?
The sixth, down 3-0, Fernando Tatis Jr. having made it 3-0 on a 432-foot blast, the 150th of his career: Montgomery single, Vargas single, Quero walk on four pitches, Curtis Mead PH K, Sosa pop-up, Michael A. Taylor PH K. Yes just to be different, the sixth featured the bases loaded with no outs before blowing it.
The seventh, still 3-0: Fletcher soft double, Meidroth walk on four pitches, Teel K, Montgomery walk on five pitches, Vargas walk on six pitches — finally driving in a run, albeit in a feeble way — Quero K (had a bad call that should have been ball four), Andrew Benintendi PH walk RBI — see? clutch walk offense!!! — Sosa ground out.
That made it 3-2, and there it stayed because the usually good but today horrid Padres pen only managed one more walk the rest of the way. All told, the Sox got 10 freebies — nine walks and one HBP — and not a one of the walks was actually earned by fouling off a bunch, executing a trained eye for the strike zone, or such.
In case you weren’t keeping count, the White Sox were 0-for-11 with runners in scoring position and left 11 on base. There’s not an offensive highlight to show because you probably don’t want to see runs walked in, but there was a nice defensive moment when normal catcher Korey Lee, playing the outfield for the first time since seven innings in the minors in 2022 and wearing Luis Robert Jr. glove got his first chance at a fly ball:
Lee’s second chance didn’t go so well, when he dropped a routine pop up, but he made up for that with a line-drive throw to the plate later to keep the runner on third from even trying to score. Of course, the Sox being the Sox, the runner was on third because Jordan Leasure never bothered to try to keep him on second.
On the pitching side, starter Sean Burke allowed all three runs, two of them earned and the third because of his own error, on six hits in four innings, with four strikeouts and no walks. The bullpen was excellent, allowing four hits and just one walk in five innings while whiffing seven.
The loss on the last game at The Rate for 2025 runs the Sox record to 58-98, which means they have to win five of their final six games to avoid a third straight season of 100 or more losses —no easy task given that beginning Tuesday they have three games at Yankee Stadium against a team in the thick of a division race.
