Important stuff from a 2-1 victory and an electrifying Sale-Kluber pitcher's duel

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A pitching matchup between Corey Kluber and Chris Sale looks pretty good on paper, looks awesome and gripping and electrifying on TV, and probably looks like the reckoning from the batter's box.

Chris Sale was sharp and enduring. He continues to look like he's hammering out the details of a modified recipe where his slider is a bit player, but is closer to the finished product than he was last month. And yet, even with eight innings of one-run ball, he was outclassed most of the night by Kluber, who was so vicious that Conor Gillaspie got applause for making contact to end the second after the first five batters of the night whiffed. The Sox picked away at the armor on occasion but spoke after the game like war survivors and thieves. Sale had the skill to hang tight and the scoreboard even as the style point disparity grew, and there's a certain degree of gratitude to have a stake in such a compelling masterpiece.

When Kluber left the game after nine innings, things quickly swung in the Sox favor, with Zach McAllister letting the first two runners reach before an 0-2, two-out flare from Carlos Sanchez gave them their sixth win a row in the form of a 10-inning thriller.

Box Score 

• Let's not pretend that Sale wasn't good, or even very good. You don't give up four hits in eight innings throwing slop. Facing an Indians lineup that didn't have many good matchup against the lanky lefty--batting Ryan Raburn cleanup was their big countermove--Sale was economical, shook off early control problems, and mostly lived off his fastball-change combo unless he was forced off. On nights like this you can glimpse the reasoning for it.
• That said, David Robertson coming for the ninth was brilliant from Robin. The margin for error was remaining razor sharp while the leverage was spiking, with Sale becoming more vulnerable. That's the time for Robertson.
• Adam Eaton was 1-4 on the night, including a first-pitch pop-up that stranded two runners. But he single-handedly scored the tying run in the sixth, effectively forcing extras when he tripled with one out, and dashed home and dived for a score on a barely wild pitch, right in the middle of two dominating Kluber strikeouts that otherwise would have stranded him.
• Zach McAllister also gave an opportunity for Carlos Sanchez to have a more fitting homecoming moment than getting overwhelmed by Kluber, and gave him something to push the other way after starting him off 0-2. Positive reinforcement moments for rookies struggling to find their footing are always nice.
• Avisail Garcia left the game after leading off the tenth with a walk in favor of J.B. Shuck, who would score the winning run. There was an argument for the move on its own, but Garcia reportedly had knee inflammation that had originally cropped up in Oakland. The White Sox are painting it as a precaution, which will ultimately be tested by how Garcia feels tomorrow. He's probably just circling the bases too much.

Next game is Tuesday night at 7:10pm CT vs. the Indians on CSN

White Sox have two players not named Chris Sale selected for AL All-Star Team

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Every year, the MLB All-Star teams produce the kind of results you expect when you try to make a dish while using four recipes at the same time. There's the popularity-driven fan selections, the surprisingly afflicted-by-media-narratives player's vote, possibly biased manager's selections, a final vote that tests which fanbase has the best combination of wi-fi speed and free time, and then the frantic substitution of ingredients that comes when players decide en masse that they would much prefer four uninterrupted days off, all things considered.

And then we count up All-Star appearances like merit badges while considering Hall of Fame candidacies. It's beautiful.

So, Jose Abreu and Alexei Ramirez made the AL All-Star Game. Good for them. That is nice. Hope they have a good time.

Abreu is the third best hitter of the AL 1B/DH crop by wRC+ (his is a beefy 151). Behind Miguel Cabrera's reputation selection and Edwin Encarnacion and an absolutely on fire Victor Martinez, there's plenty of room for Abreu, who attracts plenty of popular attention by subsisting entirely on home runs. Again, good for him, though I wonder if he gets to bring Moises Sierra with him as his personal assistant. 

There also still the issue of whether or not Abreu will participate in the Home Run Derby. Selfishly, as someone who misses the days of White Sox players smacking 500-foot home runs in front of large audiences, but am also in favor of the man doing whatever the hell he wants. He might be coming out of his shell, though, I mean, he did a shuffle dance in the dugout after a home run the other day. There's a showman deep down there somewhere.

Alexei Ramirez is also Minnesota-bound, thanks to the American League shortstop crop falling back to his level. Ramirez is basically having his 2010 and 2011 seasons but with older legs and range, and Erick Aybar and Alcides Escobar are outhitting him and are solid defenders in their own right. 

Ramirez seems to be profiting off either some league-wide appreciation of his reliably solid play, or flip-flopping the order of his super-hot and ice-cold months for once. Right now he is ice cold, when people were deciding who they were going to put in this game, he was the hottest. Miss those days.

Suffering the indignity of the Final Vote, is Chris Sale, who was left out of the AL supply of starting pitchers in favor of Mark Buehrle and Scott Kazmir's dips in the rejuvenation pool. Undoubtedly, a major factor in Sale's exclusion is his lower innings count due to his DL stint, because this is the point in the process where we suddenly decide to be really persnickety about numbers.

There's plenty to say about the way position players are selected for these teams, but at least there seems to be a vested interest in giving the fans what they want. For pitchers, this need to reward short relievers with shiny numbers gives us fun hijinks like Matt Thornton in the All-Star Game, but also creates situations where some of the most talented pitchers in the sport are getting squeezed out because they only threw 87 innings, in favor of guys who have thrown less than 40. Sean Doolittle is a marvel, Greg Holland is a dream-killer and Dellin Betances is a monster, but these guys are all relievers, and relievers for a reason.

Sale will either win the Final Vote or be one of the 19,000 late substitutions, so it's immaterial. As is all.

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