Royals 9, White Sox 6: Bullpen breakdown rare, at least for now

If there’s anything we’ve learned from the first two games of this series, it’s:

1. Baseball is more enjoyable when it’s closer to three hours than four.
2. The White Sox bullpen is good, but maybe not cover-more-than-half-the-game-on-a-regular-basis good.

Dylan Cease was not good, and while he escaped the game without getting tagged with a decision, his early exit set the stage for a bullpen collapse. Zack Burdi stood at the center of it, giving up five runs over the course of one out in the seventh for his first loss.

The White Sox made a game of it late, and added to the sense of mutually assured destruction when a swinging bunt resulted in injuries for both teams. Yoán Moncada hit a dribbler up the first base line, Ian Kennedy hurt his leg trying to field it, and Moncada ended up doubled over at second when a throwing error forced him to hobble another 90 feet.

Really, little about this game was pretty. Cease allowed just a solo homer on the day in terms of hits, but he lasted just 4⅓ innings because he walked six. It’s hard to walk six Royals in a series, much less half a game, and even more so with Ryan Blakney’s fish-eyed strike-calling.

Even though the zone bulged on both sides, Cease still couldn’t find it. He threw just 45 of his 93 pitches for strikes, and the White Sox needed 188 pitches to get through nine innings overall.

On the other side of the plate, the White Sox should’ve been able to do more damage against Brady Singer, but the Sox had a habit of getting in their own way. José Abreu and Yasmani Grandal combined to go 1-for-10 with six strikeouts in the middle of the order, and stranded 10 runners between them. That’s remarkable since the Sox stranded only seven as a team. Tim Anderson went 4-for-5, but one of those hits was a leadoff double, and he was picked off second shortly after.

The Sox went 2-for-12 with runners in scoring position. One was a hilarious Nick Madrigal RBI single on a face-high, face-threatening fastball that whizzed past Singer at 53.3 mph, but was able to split the middle of a drawn-in infield and trickle into center for an RBI single in his first game back.

Edwin Encarnación added a two-run shot, following Eloy Jiménez’s leadoff walk with a towering fly that drifted over the wall in left. That made franchise history, as the White Sox had never hit 52 homers in a single month before.

Unfortunately, the Sox offense didn’t surface again until the ninth. Kennedy was walked off on Friday, and he limped off on Saturday after giving up three more runs over one-third of an inning. Luis Robert greeted him with a single, Madrigal singled him to second, and Anderson doubled him home. That was the second hit with runners in scoring position. Moncada’s counted as an error, and we’ll see if the Sox finally are forced to take a hit with an IL stint.

Bullet points:

*Burdi has given up four homers over 6⅓ innings. He’s conquered the velocity issue, but the slider isn’t sharp.

*Ross Detwiler came in with the Sox trailing by four, and he left with the Sox trailing by six, as he gave up his first two runs of the season on four hits over just four outs.

*Grandal also yielded a passed ball to add to his rough afternoon, but Cease escaped with a double-play ball.

*Today marks just the second time this season the White Sox lost while scoring more than five runs. The other was Opening Day.

Record: 20-13 | Box score | Statcast

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