The dust has settled on the trade deadline, and there is now baseball to be played. If you have missed all the trade news over the last week, here is what you should know.
Chicago acquired starting pitcher Luis Castillo and reliever Huascar Brazobán, along with catcher Joey Bart and outfielder Brenton Doyle. The overall sentiment from my friends on this site is that the Brazobán addition is a solid move and the rest is simply meh. The hope is that, at worst, Castillo can eat innings, and, at best,
he’ll provide some solid starts down the stretch. The front office did not have to give up any of its young core or its coveted prospects to make these moves, so, all in all, it seems low-stakes.
We shall praise all the powers that be for the one glorious move that sent Seranthony Domínguez to the Mariners in the Castillo trade. Though the reliever had allowed no runs in eight of his last nine appearances, I am glad that this raised his trade value rather than convince Chris Getz to keep him on the club. We are all officially marked safe from being traumatized by the righthander ever again. Don’t you even dare suggest that there is a chance the White Sox could face him in the playoffs and be burned in a completely different way.
It should be noted that both Cleveland and Minnesota made meaningful additions to their clubs as well. As much as I would love to sit comfortably with a three-game lead heading into August, these acquisitions are going to keep this anyone’s division. If the South Siders want to win the division, they’ll simply need to keep doing what they’ve done all season: have fun and win games. Those other, more boring teams are just noise to be drowned out.
Now that the trade news is settled, let’s get to the games the team played over the last week. As most weeks seem to be these days, this was a big one. The two teams sitting above Chicago in the current playoff standings awaited them, with the Yankees coming to town first. The first two games of the set did not go to plan, but the pitching got it together to split the series before heading to Tampa and taking a series from the American League-best Rays.
The New York series, like the Houston one last week, was winnable. The South Siders took an early 3-0 lead in the opener, but the game was tied 4-4 by the bottom of the fifth. Sean Newcomb, who has been one of the bullpen’s best arms, had a rough showing, giving up four runs and letting the game slip away.
On Tuesday, it was the Yankees’ turn to take a 3-0 early lead off of Anthony Kay. Though the pitching staff did not give up another run for the remainder of the game, the White Sox could not catch up in the bottom of the ninth and dropped the second game 3-2.
Wednesday and Thursday were both thrilling matchups that saw the Good Guys back on top. Both games went to extras, with a throwing error and a walk-off single from Edgar Quero getting Chicago across the finish line on Wednesday, and a walk-off walk from Tristan Peters getting the job done on Thursday.
The pitching staff was almost unhittable in Florida. Over 27 innings, they surrendered just three runs. You read that correctly. THREE! To put this into perspective, the Rays have the best home record in baseball. The team is slashing .264/.331/.430 in its home ballpark. During this weekend’s matchup, they batted .213. Their pitching staff has the seventh-best home ERA this season at 3.61. The White Sox offense scored 15 runs (13 earned) over its 27 innings. I did some math, and that’s a 4.33 ERA for the Tampa pitching staff over the three-game set. Consider me mighty impressed with my baseball team.
Friday’s game was special with Miguel Vargas, Munetaka Murakami and Colson Montgomery all homering in the game. This is the fifth time this season that all three sluggers have hit a long ball in the same game. If they do it one more time this season, they will be the only trio to do so since at least 1900. Andrew Benintendi also homered in Friday’s game, but it was not nearly as historic as the other three.
Noah Schultz may have earned the loss in Saturday’s game, but it is exactly the type of outing he needed after having a rough go of it. He went five innings after Jordan Hicks opened the game, giving up the lone run of the entire ballgame on three hits. The young pitcher struck out four, but the more noteworthy stat from the outing was the lack of walks he issued.
In the rubber match on Sunday, the Rays started the game playing what I would describe as unstable baseball. Sam Antonacci led off the game by reaching on an error. He later scored on an error during Benintendi’s at-bat. Colson, who reached on a double, scored the second run of the game on a wild pitch. The scoring was abundant for the White Sox after that, driving in nine tallies, highlighted by home runs from Benintendi and Everson Pereira. Please enjoy Pereira’s home run as consolation for his DFA.
This week is shaping up to be similar to how July started. The club is headed to Boston, where they have to take on a Red Sox team that acquired Adley Rutschman and a slew of other reinforcements. When we saw them in July, they were in the midst of a 15-game win streak, and they have not slowed down since. Martin, Sean Burke and Castillo have their work cut out for them.
After a trip out east, the squad will head back home to take on the beefed-up Guardians. The weekend features Ozzie Guillén’s number retirement ceremony, so I am hopeful the celebration will carry the winning energy to the field.
