If you skipped the game thread text tonight, first of all, shame on you, our staff busts their knuckles prepping game previews for you. But second, I am your host tonight, channeling several of our writers who are tonight, together, at the ballgame. (Did they invite me? I’ll never tell. No, of course they did. Are they happier I’m not there? I’ll never tell.)
Each inning will be a new writer, with a link to their SSS writing at the end, so you can get a taste of their work and/or test how well I did.
So, I was late into the park, my shift went long and I found myself on the train getting from here to there thinking about the biggest moon shot home run I’d ever seen at Sox Park. Jim Thome, maybe? Probably. There was no Statcast back then, but I swear he hit one against the Angels that is still hovering over the ballpark. I’d position myself out by the Fan Deck tonight if I thought we had enough humidity to finally knock it down, but then, it might end up in a parking lot, it was hit so hard.
Which brings me to Munetaka Murakami, down 1-2 in the count and seemingly down 0-for-forever with his megaslump. Let’s check in on how that’s going:
Mune drove a 2-2 splitter on the edge of the edge of the zone approximately 1,000 feet in the air, where it hung and utterly confused Twins left fielder Gabriel Gonzalez, finally dropping straight down and about an inch over the fence to give the White Sox a 2-0 lead:
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Do you realize how strong a hitter has to be to take a pitch at the edge of the zone and seemingly flip it out of the park at 103.6 mph and 346 feet?
Colson Montgomery followed with a solo screamer out to right field to add a tally to the White Sox lead, all of which was aided by some massive hustle by Miguel Vargas earlier in the inning to beat a double play. Or, perhaps Miguel’s mitts were still swelling red after stopping a hot grounder to open the game. — Malachi Hayes
[Fade in on a White Sox fan base settled into seats for the second inning, inexplicably uneasy about the flaccid club trailing them in the standings, nervous glances darting from field to nearby friends to concession food to … scoreboard. That brutal mistress, capable of delivering joy or sorrow. And on a bad night, joy and sorrow.]
LEONARD GORE: Tigers up 2-0, dad.
PAPA GORE: Just don’t look.
LG: Hey, the Guardians are spent. We have a 2 ½-game lead. We’re in the Catbird Seat.
PG: Don’t Hawk Harrelson me, son. I taught you better than that.
LG: Still, I’m just saying …
PG: Don’t say, son. How many years have you been a White Sox fan?
LG: All my life, Pops.
PG: Enough said.
[Papa Gore takes an emphatic bite of hot dog.]
LG: Dad?
PG: [A bit annoyed, mid-bite.]
LG: Tigers are up, 6-0.
— Leonard Gore
Honestly, I’m happy the White Sox are ahead but I am distracted by a question I posed to both my mother and myself a few days ago, down in Springfield, watching the WPBL: What if baseball had been an option to play for us? Going back to when my mother played Division I softball, that’s decades of time that could have seen some player development not just into more viable professional women’s play … but women in the majors. There are now, and have always been, dominant players in baseball who aren’t 6´5´´, 250. Unlike some other sports that might prove hard for both genders to make an equal impact, baseball is not one of them. Maybe the success of the WPBL will roll out some different sorts of dreams for today’s young women players.
If you figured my mind was wandering a bit because the fast White Sox start had slowed in the third inning, you’re right. Anthony Kay pitched around a Vargas error in the top half, and the bottom saw a 1-2-3 inning that ended on yet another Murakami K. I can only hope this White Sox offensive stall doesn’t stick for several more innings. — Allie Wesel
So wait, I do all this work for South Side Sox and I organize this outing for us to the park, and I get the inning with the bases full and one out? I want to talk to the manager.
Well, we can’t have good things, right? So a 3-0 lead that seemed to come in a sneeze, before I could even get my finance bro vest zippered up as the sun fell, melts to 3-2. Kaelen Culpepper got the top of the fourth started with a single. I’m glad the White Sox have some young bats making noise, but where did all these Minnesota hitters come from? What don’t we get any Kaelen Culpeppers? After a Kay K, Josh Bell lumbered into second with a double, pushing Culpepper to third. Guess who slid on the play? No, not any Twins, but our left field ragamuffin Sam Antonacci, going feet-first to cut the ball off before it gapped itself to the wall. Second and third, nobody out, Twins.
After a walk, Kay coaxed a 4-6-3 double play that left off the 3, with Minnesota’s first run coming across. Then Brooks Lee doubled to left, which is the only way the Twins were gonna score the hulking Bell from third. Yet another ground out to third, Vargas’ third such play already in the game, got Kay out of trouble.
But suddenly, what seemed to be a runaway has now got Sox fans sweating a bit. Me, more than most. — Melissa Sage-Bollenbach
So, my mom turns to me at the game and said I’ve got the fifth inning to write up for this game. And I was like, you can’t do that. You’re not my boss, Brett is.
Yeah OK, so then she gave me that look and here I am getting us through the fifth. The White Sox have gone down like nothing for more than a full turn through the lineup, as Taj Bradley has retired 10 in a row now. And as fast as you can say “keeping pace with the Guardians,” who by the way have now lost, 6-0, and are three games back, Minnesota has rallied for three runs courtesy of this abuse of a baseball by Ryan Jeffers:
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This is where I shoot a look at my mother that says why did you do this to me?
But maybe I’ll take it back, as Chase Meidroth led off the Sox half with a single and made a scrappy read on a wild pitch to advance to second base. After a walk to Antonacci, Vargas ripped a two-out single to left, Chase chased home and tightened the game to 5-4. It would have been even more perfect if my guy, Murakami, would have hit another big and tall fly ball, but he struck out. Don’t worry, though, the tide is turning back. We got this. — Sage Bollenbach
OK, we can be honest here: I’m not a fan of the Twins. Why would anyone be, I know. But long before I was even born, there was good reason: Cal Griffith, a racist owner who relocated his team from Washington D.C. to Minneapolis because, he said, he was pleased by how overwhelmingly white Minnesota was. And arguably even worse, Griffith ran the best player in Twins history, Rod Carew, out of town by mocking him as a fool for signing with the Twins for less than his market value.
It’s an entirely new Twins ownership now, but even as a team seven games back of the White Sox, they’re pretty easy to dislike. And with them messing now with increasing our lead in the AL Central to 3 1/2 games, I’m really not a fan.
The sixth inning featured a couple of back-crack outs. First, it was short king Meidroth ending the top half of the inning on a 105.8 grounder he snagged in self-defense:
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And in the middle of the White Sox half came a smash by Colson that fooled most in the park, as off the bat it seemed he had dropped his second ball of the night over the fence. Alas, no. We’re getting into short time, hoping there’s another White Sox miracle rally ahead. — Dante Jones
I want to spend all my time writing about the White Sox and a winning effort, but before I can even settle into my keyboard in the top of the seventh, the irritating Twins put another run up on a leadoff Luke Keaschall single and a double from new White Sox killer Culpepper.
Listen, I got a win last night, a magic wand, plus a ringside seat to see my guy Kyle Teel warming up for his first action back from injury:
This is not how I’m going out tonight.
Now, in my inning, Teel finally gets into tonight’s game, pinch-hitting for Jake Rogers against righty Jeff Hoffman. Unfortunately, after Tristan Peters had slapped a double down the right field line with one out in the bottom half of the seventh, Teel got ahead in the count, 2-1, before cutting through two strikes and failing to advance the runner. Antonacci grounded out, and Chicago’s dry spell carried on toward the eighth. You know, I could be at home, learning the guitar. — Chrystal O’Keefe
Because the White Sox couldn’t push though with a lead, it was stopgap Tyler Schweitzer entering the game out of the arm barn for the White Sox, and he got a gift right away. After the dreaded leadoff walk to Kody Clemens, Lee lined out to center and Peters caught Kody dancing off of first base too long and gunned him down for the double play. In the bottom half automatic doubler Randall Grichuk landed on second base with two down, but Colson waved at a pitch at his eyes and tightened the White Sox’s chances to three final outs. — Kristina Airdo
We are out of writers, so I guess it’s left for me to bring it on home. Plus, I don’t want any of our writers in attendance to be too shocked at having to cover YOENDRIS GÓMEZ AS TWINS CLOSER. Yet there he was, closing out what was looking like a very disappointing finish.
Disappointing it was, as the White Sox went down, 1-2-3, with a K to Meidroth standing out as a particularly galling plate appearance. Unlike my game thread hunch and the power-packed beginning of this game for Chicago, the White Sox offense continues to flounder. A spark is needed, as none of the return of Teel or temporary resurgence of Munetaka and slightly more sustained thump of Colson seems to be locking the team in.
And tomorrow now may be trouble, as in an effort to (likely) maneuver the rotation so that Sean Burke-Davis Martin-Kay face the Guardians, Will Venable has pushed Burke back a day and is shifting tomorrow’s starter to TBD.
U-G-H, the division isn’t won yet and if you’re up five games by next week, that “big” series matters a lot less.
And finally, a reminder that tomorrow’s game has been pushed back toward primer time, and kicks off at 5:20 p.m. Central.
MVP
SSS crew at the ballpark
Runners-Up
Detroit Tigers
The Railyards
Sam Antonacci: The only two walks of the game for the White Sox, usual rascal hustle
Cold Cat
White Sox Offense: tasty power, but two walks against 12 Ks
Runners-Up
Weird fan takeover chants by the tarps-off jagbags
FINANCIAL BRO VESTS
Anthony Kay: 5 ⅓ IP, 6 H, 5 ER, BB, 3 K, HR, LOSS (9-8)
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