The first half ends the way it started, with the White Sox and Royals squaring off to determine nothing of import whatsoever.
What the first series did -- as did the subsequent series, and all of June and the first 10 days of July -- is position the Royals as a team who can make the White Sox feel better about themselves at every turn.
When they last met, the White Sox took three out of five games at Kauffman Stadium to close out April. The standings then:
- White Sox: 8-18
- Royals: 7-21
The two teams didn't meet over the course of May. The White Sox had another disastrous month with a single-digit win total, while the Royals played a more respectable brand of baseball. At the end of May, it appeared as though the Royals could only prop up the Sox in person:
- Royals: 20-36
- White Sox: 16-37
Then June hit. The White Sox got Carlos Rodon, Avisail Garcia and Leury Garcia back for varying lengths of time. The Royals stopped hitting, resulting in one of the worst offensive months in baseball history. The standings:
- White Sox: 28-54
- Royals: 25-57
And July has shown no signs of a Royal rebound:
- White Sox: 31-61
- Royals: 26-66
The White Sox are 15-24 since the start of June, the kind of pace that leads to a 100-loss season on the nose. And they're somehow 7½ games up on the Royals during this window, because Kansas City is on a 135-loss pace over this same stretch. You think the White Sox are unwatchable because they've won one of their last seven games, except the Royals have only won one of their last 12.
Say what you will about the White Sox, but they're unlikely to go 6-30 over a 36-game stretch. Think of all the frustration you've endured watching these White Sox, and then realize that this offense has been 61 runs better than Kansas City's over the start of June. If you want to put that into slash lines, since June 1:
- White Sox: .237/.288/.376
- Royals: .211/.268/.332
Of course, there's pitching. The White Sox have a ghastly 4.97 ERA, which ranks 29th out of 30 MLB teams. They've also registered a measly 683 strikeouts, which ranks 28th.
You'll never guess who ranks 30th in both.
The Royals manage to out-sad the White Sox in other ways, too. It's not a lot of fun watching Jose Abreu slide into the All-Star Game, but Sal Perez is hitting .217/.257/.386 and has been worse than replacement level (-0.9 WARP). Whit Merrified, by far Kansas City's best player, is interested in a long-term contract, but it doesn't make sense to give him one because he won't be a free agent until his age-34 season. They'd probably be better off trading him and Mike Moustakas, and it's staggering to think what the Royals will look like then.
This doesn't necessarily ensure success against KC, although Matt Davidson surely hopes otherwise since he's hitting .202/.309/.356 with a 38 percent strikeout rate over the 48 games since he last saw Royals pitching.
Both teams are awful and Carlos Rodon just pitched, so perhaps the Sox are just what Kansas City needs to find some semblance of respectability. Ideally, the White Sox would win or sweep the series to draw a line of demarcation between the disappointing and the irredeemable, but the White Sox haven't been reliable in any one aspect this season, so it's a distinction they'll have to earn.
