Well, that’s not how you want to start a road trip after going against two of the best teams in all of baseball. There’s no good way to slice it: the White Sox (38-33) got whooped by the Yankees (44-27) in the series opener, 12-2. Though they scored 12, the Yanks somehow still left 10 on base and went 3-for-12 with runners in scoring position. Translation: it was already really bad, and it could have been a lot worse.
Tonight was not Davis Martin’s night. In fact, it was unfortunately his worst start
of the season and tied for the most runs allowed in his career. Martin looked great in the first, only taking 10 pitches to get out of the inning while striking out both Ben Rice and Paul Goldschmidt, but things went downhill from there, and the Yankees blew the game open in the fourth. New York exploded for nine runs against him on eight hits, three walks, and three homers, while striking out just four. The control just wasn’t there for Davis, and one of his walks even brought in a run for the Yankees. Martin ultimately lasted 3 1/3 frames and received his third loss this year as his ERA ballooned to 3.31, up from 2.41 before the first pitch.
The South Siders had even scored one run in the first to jump ahead, 1-0, thanks to a solo shot from Andrew Benintendi, but they ended up needing way more runs than that.
In hindsight, the second inning was just foreshadowing the damage the Yankees’ bats were about to do. Spencer Jones blasted a game-tying solo homer into the upper deck in right field; the short porch strikes again. Since Statcast was down for the first few innings of this game, I can’t tell you the exact distance, but my sources (myself) say it was hit very hard and very far, 1-1.
While the Good Guys went three-up, three-down over the next four innings, New York did the opposite. Two plays snowballed into a four-run rally in the bottom of the third and cast a black cloud over the team. The first was J.C. Escarra’s check-swing-double down the third-base line, sliding around Chase Meidroth’s tag at second despite the ball beating him there. Annoying, but it was what it was. Right after that, however, Jacob Gonzalez seemed to have a mental lapse on a ground ball to Meidroth at second, as he was nowhere to be found at first base to get the out. It seemed like he was maybe thinking the ball was getting through and that he might need to cut it off? Who knows, but all of a sudden, Martin had to deal with runners on the corners with no outs and the heart of the Yankees’ lineup coming up.
All three of Martin’s walks came in the third. Ben Rice was originally called out on strikes by the umpire, but an ABS challenge confirmed the umpire was wrong by over 1 1/2 inches, and alas, the bases were loaded. Cody Bellinger took the first pitch for a two-run single out to right, and the Yanks took the lead, 3-1. Dear reader, I wish I could say the scoring ended there.
Finally, an out was recorded after Goldschmidt struck out for a second time, and Davis got ahead in the count (1-2) on Jazz Chisolm Jr. before tossing three straight balls to walk him and reload the bases. In the next at-bat, Martin walked in a run to give the Yankees a three-run lead, 4-1, and the walk was confirmed via ABS after Drew Romo wasted a challenge. With how rough the inning was going, I can understand why he wanted to challenge it, but it felt pretty unnecessary there. Before he was able to officially end the inning, Davis allowed the fourth tally of the inning on a sac fly to center from José Caballero, 5-1.
The fourth sadly didn’t get any better for Davis. To spare you the details, both Rice and Goldschmidt blasted two-run bombs, and that ended up being the end of Martin’s night. Reflect on the game, then start fresh tomorrow and move on. Sometimes those days just happen.
Chris Murphy came on in relief for the remainder of the fourth, but it still took another 27 pitches to end the inning, with two more runs scoring, making it 11-1. Ouch. Only one of those two was earned, however, after Murphy himself made a throwing error to first on a swinging bunt from Escarra, who was seemingly the luckiest guy at the plate today.
Offensively, the bats were dead after the Beni bomb, not getting another until the top of the sixth. Gerrit Cole was pretty solid tonight, allowing just three hits and one run while striking out six White Sox hitters. Once they were down 10 runs, Will Venable just started subbing in anyone and everyone because it was time just to take this one on the chin, get through the game, and move on. The Sox started a tiny rally in the sixth that ended with them scoring just one run and leaving the bases loaded, 11-2. Spoiler alert, this was also the last run they scored for the rest of the game. The Sox mustered four total hits, walked twice, left four on base, and went 1-for-3 with runners in scoring position. They didn’t even have enough runners left on base to cut the score in half, so we can just chalk this one up as an L.
The one pitcher who actually did a solid job for the South Siders was lefthander Joe Rock, who acted as a long reliever with three scoreless innings in which he allowed four hits, a walk, and struck out four. After the seventh, Venable turned Luisangel Acuña into a two-way player, as Acuña also pitched the eighth inning, nearly scoreless if not for a garbage-time homer from Caballero, 12-2.
As a surprise to no one, Chicago once again went down in order, putting themselves and all of us out of our misery. If you didn’t watch this game, I’m genuinely happy for you. The good news is that the South Siders remain in first place as the Guardians also lost tonight, so it’s time for a good night of rest for the White Sox and come back fresh tomorrow. Same time, same place, with Anthony Kay on the mound.
