It may have been a short week for some with Memorial Day, but for the White Sox it was a full week without an off-day. And that busy week proved fruitful: For the first time since May 2023, the Chicago club enjoyed a winning month — a month that was capped with a 6-1 week.
For the first two months of the season, the South Siders only had to play seven games against the AL Central, all against the Kansas City Royals. That is, until this week, when a seven-game home stand saw two divisional foes come
to town.
Minnesota arrived in Chicago having lost the last six games they had played against the White Sox. Monday, they would drop their seventh. Anthony Kay continued his fantastic May, giving up just a solo home run to Brooks Lee in his six innings of work. He earned the win and lowered his ERA below four. Munetaka Murakami and Drew Romo provided the three RBIs needed to win the ballgame via the home run. Given Mune is now on the 10-day injured list, please enjoy his first inning dinger that tied the game at one:
The Twins finally snapped their losing streak against the White Sox on Tuesday evening, handing Chicago a 5-3 loss. Sean Burke pitched seven strong innings of two-run baseball, striking out eight and walking two. With Rikuu Nishida on base in the bottom of the eighth inning, Murakami launched his 19th homer of the season to tie the game and take it to extras. Ultimately, Minnesota would edge out the White Sox in 11 innings. An extra-inning loss as the only loss of the week is something I will not complain about.
Wednesday was Illini night at the ballpark. Orange and blue flooded the stadium to celebrate Chicagoland University of Illinois students, alumni and fans. David Sandlin, who did not go to U of I, put on a show for the block I faithful. The second pitch of his outing was taken out of the ballpark by Byron Buxton, but the rest of his 61 pitches were spotless: The 25-year-old righty sat down 18 in a row over his six innings of work, striking out four and walking none.
It did not hurt that during this debut, Sandlin’s offense scored 15 runs. The 15-2 final is the largest victory by the White Sox since a 2020 game against the Tigers. There were a total of 18 hits and seven walks for the offense. Chase Meidroth led the effort with four RBIs, coming via his first career grand slam:
Also on Wednesday, Murakami hit his 20th home run of the season, becoming the first rookie in baseball history to hit 20 or more before June. I am very glad he reached this mark before straining his hamstring on Friday.
Davis Martin took the mound for the series finale against Minnesota and did what he has done all season. The righthander picked up his fourth quality start of the month and eighth of the season, going six innings, giving up one run, and striking out five. His season ERA is now at an even two and his WHIP is just shy of one. If you haven’t started considering that Martin might be on a Cy Young run, you might want to start thinking about it.
A special mid-weekly recap shout-out goes to Sam Antonacci, who is naturally an infielder but has been making a name for himself in left field. The diving catch he made on Thursday is just one in many of the impressive grabs supporting the pitching staff.
After the Twins were taken care of, it was time to deal with Detroit. Last season the White Sox were 5-8 against the Tigers. This season, each team is respectively having a opposite experience from 2025. The weekend sweep began with a seemingly boring game. The Tigers scored two runs in the top of the third inning and the White Sox only scored one.
The boredom stopped in the bottom of the ninth, when Nishida executed an RBI sacrifice bunt to tie the game and take it to extras. Zack Short put the Tigers in front 3-2 in the top of the 10th inning. The first two outs of the bottom of the 10th were quite quick.
Enter Miguel Vargas on a 0-1 count:
In Saturday’s 7-1 rout Edgar Quero, Colson Montgomery and Andrew Benintendi all got in on the long ball. This, plus Kay and the bullpen’s effort kept the White Sox in control the entire game. Credit where credit is due to Kay: The starter had a 6.64 ERA in the month of April but has since turned it around. In his six starts in May, the southpaw went 4-0 over 32 1/3 innings of work. His ERA this month was a stunning 1.95, which helped lower his season ERA to a more respectable 3.77.
Sunday’s series finale against Detroit was another game Chicago spent mostly trailing. The Tigers scored a run in the top of the first inning and it was all zeroes until the bottom of the seventh inning. That White Sox rally started with Montgomery’s 15th home run of the season to tie the game at one apiece. The dinger was followed by three one-out singles. The second was knocked by Jacob Gonzalez, giving him his first MLB hit in his debut. Tristan Peters’ RBI single brought Meidroth around to score the winning run ,which capped off the rally and lifted the South Side to a 2-1 victory. Southpaw, the White Sox mascot, truly enjoyed the gift of a sweep on his 22nd birthday.
This month was a good month. Highlights include tying the Seattle Mariners for the MLB home run lead with 42, ranking fifth in the league in scoring with 146 runs, improving the run differential to +8, and converting eight of 10 save opportunities.
As of today, the White Sox are just one game back from the division leading Guardians and have a better record than the Chicago Cubs. It may feel surreal, but this is the reality of the baseball season so far. The month of June is shaping up to be a tough one. The divisional games continue to flow, and the month includes games against the Phillies, Braves, Dodgers and Yankees.
For now, I will be soaking in the fact that my team won 30 games before the month of June for the first time in a long while.
