Chris Sale took a no-hitter into the fifth, whipped through seven easy shutout innings with just 93 pitches, and ended his night by breaking a bat--was it even his?!--against the wall outside the dugout after coughing up a 5-0 lead.
Read MoreThere's a world of difference between the pedigrees and skill sets of White Sox starter Andre Rienzo and Angels starter Jered Weaver, but Friday night they could have convinced you it was just a matter of a few pitches; Weaver's get out of jail swing-and-miss offerings that Rienzo can't find, and the Rienzo's back-breaking hangers that Weaver would never throw.
Read MoreDespite being drafted nearly 24 hours ago and the Sox picking up his college catcher today, Carlos Rodon has yet to sign and slide into the starting rotation. Maybe by the end of the weekend.
In the mean time, the battery of Andre Rienzo and Adrian Nieto goes into place, represent a rare voyage outside of Nieto's partnership with John Danks. Nieto, who has allowed 12 wild pitches and three passed balls in 19 games, will get to deal with Rienzo's erratic, tumbling curveball.
Read MoreI don't understand what John Danks is doing. And I am becoming increasingly of the opinion that I do not want to. Squinting at an illusion forever seems like a good way to make it go away. Danks' stuff hasn't found great newfound life. His control has improved but he walked three batters Thursday. He's just unhittable now, and the more people stay ignorant as to why, the better.
Behind Danks' one run allowed over 7.1 innings, the Sox were able to skip their way out of Chavez Ravine with a series victory, despite having two solo home runs as their only offense.
Read MoreHector Noesi tried his best to turn Tuesday's game against the Dodgers into a big pile of terrible, but a little bit of luck couple with Jose Abreu doing his thing proved enough in a 4-1 victory.
Read MoreFor large portions of Monday night's game, the starting pitching was sharp enough to make innings feel like victory laps. After three innings, Dodgers starter Clayton Kershaw was cruising on the way to his inevitable perfect game. He only threw 21 pitches for nine outs, the Sox looked like crap. It was happening.
But after Gordon Beckham broke up his perfecto with a sharp single to right-center, and Jose Abreu announced his return by whipping a high slider over the left field wall to give the Sox a seemingly massive 2-0 lead, Jose Quintana was marching toward his glorious triumph over the odds. That lasted until the bottom of the sixth, when the White Sox defense got a hold of the game, and they hit a hell of a lot harder than Abreu.
Two physical errors of the statistically quantifiable kind, one mental error that it's up to us amateur historians to chronicle, a Justin Turner bloop/pop-up base hit, and five unearned runs later, and the Dodgers were on a victory lap of their own, honored with a 5-2 win for being the team that was less dead set on losing.
After entering the sixth with just two hits allowed, Quintana set himself up for a bit of doom by letting Kershaw spray a single into left, but worked his way back from a 3-0 count to strike out the purposely passive Chone Figgins, then seemed to overcame Gordon Beckham inexplicably whiffing on a Matt Kemp inning-ending double play ball by striking out NL MVP frontrunner Yasiel Puig, and getting Hanley Ramirez to slap a bouncer over to Conor Gillaspie at third.
Then, the rain came.
Gillaspie should have stepped on the third base bag. It was an easy force play that was there for him, especially with Kershaw being the runner on second. But, BUT!--I can understand him throwing over. Throwing to first is a so much more common action, that if an infielder is just acting out of routine and locked in, I'm a little hesitant to fault them for going with it.
Conor was not locked in on this throw. He rarely is and he certainly wasn't tonight. Instead he double-clutched, and as he had been doing throughout the evening, tried to nervously edge himself closer before releasing--that he got closer to the bag makes him not recognizing the force play look worse--and uncorked something like a splitter to Jose Abreu that bounced at the lip of the infield dirt and squirted past.
Torturously, while Gillaspie's error was emblematic of the collapse, it didn't end the misery. An Adrian Gonzalez infield single off Quintana's glove that Beckham nearly retrieved in time actually tied the game, and the flare from Turner broke it open. Drew Butera hitting an RBI single off Quintana, only adding another dollup to the sadness, managed to not even being one of the top-five upsetting moments of the night. Quintana's ERA dropped to 3.31 for the year by being otherwise dominant, so he has that.
Besides That Abreu Dinger, the Sox spent most of their time being liquefied by eight innings of Kershaw and a Kenley Jansen save, probably the two arms in baseball most deservings of a shrug when they decapitate your lineup.
Team Record: 29-30
Next Game: Tomorrow at 9:10 p.m. CT at Los Angeles on WGN
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There was a month-long period where these appearances weren't popping up 1-2 times per week and lifting us out of the daily trudge of a .500 baseball team. Let us never speak of it again.
Read MoreChris Sale has been here before. His team is staring down a two-game losing streak, at the risk of suffering a home sweep, and is in the middle of a brutal offensive stretch where their 3.82 runs/game for the month of May doesn't tell the whole story.
They hit .245/.305/.368 as a team in May (85 wRC+), and struck out in a truly prodigious 24.7% of their trips to the plate. After three runs and nine hits in two games against the Padres, the Sox need an ace pitching performance to save them from themselves.
Read MoreThis picture is the game. Look at this picture. You have seen the game.
It's surprising the White Sox were even in this game. They should not have been in this game. Only you the viewer, could have observed the early portions of this game, as Andre Rienzo traipsed around like a man casually smoking at a gas station, courting disaster, and had thoughts as drenched in hubris and deluded exceptionalism as to think the Sox should be competing to win this game. Really, Saturday's 4-2 loss to the Padres was a big referendum on you.
After blowing through the first innings and getting two beautiful strikeouts with a tight overhand curveball, Rienzo burnt himself out after 3.1 innings of wildness and hanging cutters, and has now effectively followed two of the most promising outings of his career with two duds that call his future of the rotation into question.
Rienzo yielded a leadoff walk to Yonder Alonso to start the second and quickly went down 1-0 when Wil Venable ripped an RBI double down the line. The lanky Brazilian looked like he had rescued himself from a big inning when he caught Venable coming home on a comebacker, but the rundown took so long that it allowed Cameron Maybin run his way back into scoring position (though he hurt himself to do so).
The first of two booming doubles Rienzo would allow to backup catcher Rene Rivera would put the Padres up 2-0 early. And when the Sox scratched a run back in the bottom half after a heroic 'RBI GIDP' from Alejandro De Aza, Rienzo responded by loading the bases with no one out to start the third. It was here, after two innings spent on the lamb, that Rienzo's curveball came back to strike out Alonso, and even an RBI single from Venable was limited in damage since Carlos Quentin--oblivious as he is powerful--was the trailing runner, and ran into the tag at home.
Because of the limited damage, the Sox were within their usual firing range despite having to go to Scott Carroll in the fourth inning, Despite May's persistent offensive struggles...
For May: The White Sox offense is 13th in the AL in runs and leads all of baseball with a 24.6% strikeout rate
— The Catbird Seat (@TheCatbird_Seat) May 31, 2014
...the opportunities were there for an absurd comeback and triumph over poor starting pitching, there just wasn't the big hit to make much of it hurt. De Aza burned alive the second inning rally for one run. Adam Dunn stranded two in the first amid an 0-4, 3K day. Dayan Viciedo, who had two hits and drove in the Sox other run with a double in the fifth, first-pitch hacked all day, including an inning-ending double play with two on in the third, right after Conor Gillaspie had worked his second walk of the day.
They stranded a runner in scoring position on an effectively wild starter Tyson Ross in the fourth and fifth as well, before going to sleep again for the second-straight day against the Padres bullpen. San Diego trotted out the same trio of Nick Vincent, Joaquin Benoit and Huston Street from Friday night, and a two-out walk from Street was the only baserunner they allowed. Each guy even finished his inning with 13 pitches each.
Carroll could be commended for doing his job and keeping some illusion. He filled in 3.2 innings and only allowed a single run despite three walks. However, that run came right after the Sox drew within a run again in the bottom of the fifth. Shutdown innings are aesthetic illusions, but since the Sox didn't have anything actually going, some aesthetics and more false hope would have been nice.
Team Record: 28-29
Next Game: Tomorrow at 1:10 p.m. CT vs. San Diego on CSN Chicago
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John Danks needs to start telling his offense ahead of time when he's going to catch lightning in a bottle so they can schedule a parade. Instead, the Sox were in an odd position where their embattled and damaged starter was the sharpest guy on the field, as Ian Kennedy and the Padres bullpen overwhelmed the offense, and Adrien Nieto Double-A'd the go-ahead run home in a 4-1 loss made uglier by Javy Guerra.
Read MoreThe margins in MLB are slim enough that even something as basic as a three-game sweep against a slumping Indians team requires some surprising extra contributions. On a related note, an opposite-field Moises Sierra single gave the White Sox a 10-inning walk-off 3-2 victory, buttressed by 7.1 outstanding innings from Hector Noesi.
Yes.
Read MoreWhite Sox fans expecting a healthy dose of Chris Sale in his second start back from injury saw their dreams cut short on Tuesday night as more than two hours of rain delays forced the ace out after just three innings.
But Scott Carroll, of all people, came to the rescue, scattering five hits over the next three innings and the offense did just enough in a 2-1 win over the Indians in a game that lasted until well after midnight.
Read MorePowered by six hits, four runs scored and four RBI from their No. 3 and No. 4 hitters, the White Sox cruised to a fun and easy 6-2 Memorial Day victory over the Cleveland Indians. More of note, is that their No. 3 and No. 4 hitters are Conor Gillaspie and Dayan Viciedo.
Read MoreAndre Rienzo has had worse starts than the outing he put together in Sunday's 7-1 loss to the Yankees, but the numbers might not necessarily show it.
Read MoreWe spent a month not talking about the foibles of the bullpen of a supposedly rebuilding team, but it looks like that's as far as we're going to get. One-year rental, potential trade chit and never-ever-intended closer Ronald Belisario, fresh off a promotion to the ninth inning after one of the best stretches of his career, is back to not being able to target his one pitch of note. Dealing out high sinkers like they were currency in the last days of the Weimar Republic, Belisario was tagged for three runs in the ninth--crucial, as the Sox were up 3-0--the last of which came on a dinky Brian McCann bloop single just to let everyone know that it was fate, all along.
Read MoreIf someone had to show one clip of the Sox 6-5 win over the Yankees, they would undoubtedly go with Adam Dunn pulverizing an 0-2 fastball from David Robertson for a two-run walk-off home run. They'd show slow-mos of Dunn's swing, they'd flash to how Robertson threw both his arms up in frustration immediately after contact, and they would call it a night, and it would be fine. In terms of video, drama, and just win probability, this is the moment to highlight.
Read MoreAfter just over a month of waiting, White Sox fans were yet again able to celebrate Chris Sale Day and it went off without a hitch. Sale dominated Derek Jeter's Farwell Tour lineup through six innings in a 3-2 White Sox win.
Read MoreQuintana had simply glorious command. Back when there wasn't much to his game, he always had a knack for putting his pitches where they wouldn't be crushed. Now that it's mixed with 90-93 mph velocity, an 87 mph cutter and the newer feature of a slider that looks more like a wipeout offering than a show-me pitch, it seems like he should never fail. He's too precise.
His defeat Wednesday night was thus an appropriately infuriating collection of unlucky tappers and terrible timing.
Read MorePitching, hitting and defense—the White Sox did just enough of all three to beat the Royals 7-6 for their second-straight victory over their divisional foes.
Offensively, the top of the order consistently got on base, as Gordon Beckham and Conor Gillaspie collected a combined six hits and scored four runs. Each of them scored on Adam Dunn’s three-run home run in the eighth inning, which extended the White Sox lead at the time to 7-2.
Andre Rienzo had a quality start, allowing only two earned runs on five hits in six innings. Rienzo also struck out eight, while walking just two Royals hitters. The outing brought Rienzo’s season ERA down to 4.00 and raised his record to an unblemished 4-0.
Young phenom Yordano Ventura pitched for the Royals and the four earned runs he gave up over six innings matches his season-high. Ventura allowed seven hits, while only striking three White Sox hitters.
“Fresh” off a two-inning appearance last night, Zach Putnam pitched out of a jam in the eighth inning to help preserve a two-run lead going into the ninth inning.
Putnam was helped out on a spectacular defensive play from Alexei Ramirez, who robbed Norichika Aoki of an RBI single. Ramirez threw out Aoki from his knees on a ground ball in the hole.
The dramatic anticipation of who would be the White Sox closer after Matt Lindstrom was placed on the 15-day disabled list lasted only one night as Ronald Belisario struck out Lorenzo Cain with the tying run on second base to preserve the one-run victory.
The White Sox go for the sweep tomorrow and a chance to return to breakeven on the season when Jose Quintana opposes Jeremy Guthrie at 7:10 PM.
The White Sox starting pitching situation is rough. Monday night, they sent out 29-year-old rookie Scott Carroll to get mollywhopped for the third time in a row, and after a defensive breakdown opened up the floodgates for a five-run first, they counted themselves lucky when he got through three more innings with only one more run. It was an improvement over John Danks' outing on Sunday, after all.
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