Tigers 5, White Sox 2: The postseason has arrived
What a deflating end to the season.
Not the White Sox running themselves out of a potential go-ahead situation in the seventh before Reynaldo López gave up a leadoff homer and two other runs in the ninth. More the fact that we had a potential for dramatic tiebreakers in each league and ended up with nothing to show for it. The Yankees won in the ninth with a single run, the Red Sox rallied from four down to beat the Nats, and the Giants routed the Padres.
There will be no baseball on Monday. Boooooooooooo.
As for this game, I paid more attention to the games with actual implications, so a bullet-point recap:
*Dylan Cease threw a sturdy four innings of one-run ball, and the only reason it wasn’t more innings and fewer runs was Leury García misplaying a ball in front of him and a ball at the fence for Detroit’s first run.
*García also couldn’t stop a grounder down the line from rattling around the corner, turning a two-out double into a two-out triple in the sixth inning. Three misplays, but none of them counted as an error.
*Reynaldo López gave up a wall-scraping, go-ahead homer to Daz Cameron to start the ninth, followed by a single, RBI double, walk and sac fly that gave the Tigers plenty of insurance. Matt Foster, who had to finish Dallas Keuchel’s ugly appearance on Saturday, cleaned up again for López here.
*Yoán Moncada committed an error during Foster’s portion of the ninth, getting played by a hop on a wet infield.
*Ryan Tepera struck out two during a perfect eighth that only too 14 pitches.
*Michael Kopech was dominant at everything except stopping the running game over his three innings. Akil Baddoo greeted him with a single, stole second, moved to third on a lineout and scored on a sac fly to give Detroit a 2-1 lead in the fifth.
*The Tigers went 4-for-4 running on White Sox pitchers, including three swipes on Cease.
*The White Sox offense had a quiet game mostly due to Moncada, Yasmani Grandal, Eloy Jiménez and García going 0-for-13 from the No. 3-7 spots. It’s 0-for-15 if you count unsuccessful replacement at-bats for Billy Hamilton and Zack Collins.
*Luis Robert put the “H” in “DH” with a 117-mph screamer into the left field seats in the first inning off Tyler Alexander, which tied the game at 1.
*Adam Engel was healthy enough to go 2-for-4 with a double while playing center the whole time.
*Engel scored after his double on an RBI single by Andrew Vaughn, who bounced a first pitch through the big hole on the right side.
*Vaughn didn’t score because Moncada’s sharp grounder with the bases loaded resulted in a force at home … and then a double play, because Tim Anderson ran through third when Dustin Garneau dropped the transfer, and was eventually tagged out after a lengthy rundown.
*Cease finished the year 13-7 with a 3.91 ERA and 226 strikeouts over 165⅔ innings.
Record: 93-69 | Box score | Statcast
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I didn’t finish watching the game, so the bulletpoints are always welcome. Alright, here we are. Go White Sox!
Cease is more or less where I thought he’d be at the end of next year. It’s really nice to see him develop as quickly as he has, especially given that Keuchel aged fast.
Agreed. His season has to be at least an 80th percentile outcome, all things considered.
80th percentile might even be a bit low. I can honestly say I didn’t see this big of a jump happening but kudos to Katz and Cease for the work they’ve done. Doubling his K%, cutting his walks, and cutting his FIP nearly in half? I know the ERA doesn’t show much change from last year but Cease went from being super lucky ERA-wise to being somewhat unlucky. That is huge!
And I think this is just getting started. I believe Dylan will be an ace in the near future.
A couple hours before the games began today, I took advantage of the sunny weather to stroll around Brooklyn.
Saw a guy wearing a 2005 World Series Sox cap. A good omen as we prepare for the Sox to travel to Houston this week.
Yesterday I met a Marlins fan. Right there I was pumped because I thought they were just mythical creatures. Then he said “I met Mark Buehrle once.”
That’s when I started to feel good about our playoff chances. I mean, how often does a person living in Maine meet a Marlins fan who once met Mark Buehrle? That’s gotta be a sign.
As much as I’ll miss Jason and Steve on the playoff broadcasts, it was delightful knowing it wasn’t the end of the season as it usually is for the White Sox. Their send-off was nostalgic in a good way, not something often experienced at the end of Sox seasons. (And last year was weird of enough I don’t count it, despite the playoff appearance.)
Who are we getting? OMG, please tell me A-Rod won’t be there. Who has the rights of broadcasting?
Fires up a Google search….
ESPN has the rights this year, A-Rod is part of their crew.
*Dies*
ESPN only has the AL Wild Card game. The Sox/Astros series will be on FS1, with one game on MLB Network.
I’m grateful it won’t be Gordon Beckham. Good chance it won’t be as bad as that.
Have you listened to ARod? Beckham is Vin Scully by comparison.
At least Beckham actually talks about what’s happening on the field.
Well, this is just wrong. Get Josh to fire up the podcast booth and tell Jason and Steve that they can call these games remotely. They would have all the Sox fans listening in and probably most of the others watching it too.
I’ve never heard Stone get that emotional.
https://twitter.com/NBCSWhiteSox/status/1444795568455397378
Yes, I was surprised at that, as well. He later took some of the edge off with some joking, but the underlying tones were still there.
Good for Len Kasper – he finally gets to call some post-season baseball games (and Darrin, too, who only called the Oakland oddity last year).
Sox are 4-0 against Houston in the postseason Just saying.
Sox ended the regular season with 4 starting pitchers at 4.0 fWAR or greater. I’d say that’s a pretty decent recipe for success.
Also, I don’t know what to expect from the ALDS, mainly because neither team has seen the other at full strength.
4 fWAR and none of the pitchers were close to approaching 200IP
What role does Kimbrel play? I know he has looked better lately, but still has given up a run in 4 of his last 8 outings. Bummer on the other hand had a lights-out September, not giving up an earned run in his last 13 outings or so.
I know we all hoped Kimbrel would get himself straight, while he has looked better I just don’t think he established that with enough good outings, personally. I would go with Bummer and several others before I would trust Kimbrel in a game-on-line situation vs the Astros.
I’m just not ready to let the outcome of a playoff series rest on Kimbrel’s shoulders. Thoughts?
I agree. I think Bummer should get the 8th inning. I’m just not sure where Kimbrel fits in. 5th/6th inning?
Kimbrel not 8th inning high leverage guy for me either. I hope TLR doesn’t use him that way, will be very interesting to see what they do with him.
Hope the starters might be good for at least 6 so they can use Kopech, Crochet, Tepera, Bummer to get to Liam without need for Kimbrel.
The starters are going to be allowed to go 6 and Kopech is the long man. They been setting that up
The pitch counts are going to build up quick against the Astros. They are a patient team who doesn’t strike out much, so there will be a lot of long counts. If we can get 5 solid out of our starters, that would be great. Anything more than that would be a bonus.
I would assume twice through the order or give up 3 runs then on to the bullpen.
I don’t think any hard and set rules. If Giolito has a great game where he is dominant, he could absolutely go 7-8 innings.
I recall the 2005 ALCS where they had 4 complete games. I know we’ll never see that again, but could certainly see more than 5 or 6 innings from each starter if they are on that day.
This isn’t 2005 anymore. Managers don’t leave starters out that long in the playoffs unless you have Max Scherzer or someone like that
Giolito can be in Scherzer’s category on any given day. He went 7 in last years playoff win.
If he is on with an economy of pitches, like he was in his 3 hit complete game win vs the Asros in July, I don’t think he is getting pulled after 5 or 6 automatically. I hope he pitches well enough to break that stereotype.