Blow a seven-run against a terrible team? Why not?
Win anyway? Eh, why not?
From the get-go, the Washington Nationals made it a point to show why a lot of experts now think they’re an even worse team than the White Sox. A booted grounder on the first at-bat, a throw into the outfield on the next one, then giving up four runs on a Miguel Vargas single, Brooks Baldwin two-run double and Lenyn Sosa single handed the Sox had a 4-0 lead after half an inning.
The nasty Nats weren’t done with errors, either.
After the Sox scored two runs legitimately in the fourth on a Sosa homer, a Dominic Fletcher walk and the first stolen base of his career (other teams can be horrible at holding runners, too) and Kyle Teel single, the Nationals gifted two in the fifth, in part because of a play that should have been made by Paul De Jong but wasn’t called an error, partly because a bizarre catcher-to-second pickoff try sailed maybe 30 feet over the base into center. After that, Sosa doubled in his third run of the day and Will Robertson hit a sac fly, and voila, 8-1 Chicago lead, the sole Washington counter being a Josh Bell homer.
Here’s Sosa’s long ball, because for this game, we can’t be bothered with mere singles and doubles:
So, 8-1 lead, no need to worry, right? You’re forgetting the Sox pitching staff. Starter Yoendrys Gómez got through the fourth on just the Bell dinger (Bell dinger, get it?), but in the fifth surrendered a solo shot to Luis Garcia Jr. to cut the lead to a mere 8-2 and was lucky to escape without more damage after a couple of singles were crushed, thanks to a terrible-looking K by old buddy De Jong, who looked this whole game like he needs to retire after this weekend.
The sixth was another story, with homers by CJ Abrams and Garcia’s second, this time with someone on. If you lost track, that’s four into the seats for a team that only had 152 in its previous 159 games, and a score that was suddenly 8-5.
Surprisingly, neither team scored until the bottom of the eighth, when Jordan Leasure reminded all Sox fans why we used to cringe to see him coming into a game, way back before this month: The righty promptly gave up a walk, a single, a three-run homer to Daylen Lile and a third of the game to Garcia. Yep — six gopher balls from the Sox staff to a team not exactly known for power.
Suddenly, the whole 8-1 lead was blown and the Sox were down, 9-8. The outlook wasn’t brilliant for the Mudville, er, Chicago Nine at that point. Fortunately, though, the Nationals have essentially no pitching staff, with a bullpen that comes in 30th in Baseball Reference’s Wins Above Average by position, so far behind everyone else No. 29 is barely visible through a telescope.
They went with lefty Jose Ferrer, an occasional (and lousy) closer. Ferrer got Chase Meidroth to ground out, but then somehow got Teel’s easy dribbler stuck in his glove and dribbled it around like a soccer ball for the fourth Washington error of the day. The other miscues had led to four unearned runs. Whatever might happen this time?
To the plate came Colson Montgomery, to that point 0-for-4 with three Ks and a .211 hitter against lefties. Ferrer got ahead 0-1, then decided that a sinker belt-high down the middle would be a good idea. It wasn’t:
Montgomery’s 104.3 mph line shot put the Sox up, 10-9, half of the runs unearned. But, wait …
In the bottom of the ninth, Grant Taylor gave up a leadoff single to pinch hitter Nasim Nunez, and then a 109.5 mph scorcher to James Wood, but one that didn’t have enough loft to become Nationals homer No. 7 and got tracked down in left-center by Derek Hill, in as a pinch-hitter and defensive replacement.
Taylor struck out Abrams, and would have been facing Bell, but, stone-handed defender that he is Bell had been replaced by Andrés Chaparro after the Nats took the lead in the ninth. Chaparro proceeded to show why he hasn’t had a hit since the Truman administration by politely whiffing on three fastballs and ending the game.
