Following the White Sox's 4-2 win against the Detroit Tigers on Sunday -- you know, the one where the Sox scored the winning run after Robbie Grossman's historic 440-game errorless streak came crashing to an inexplicable end -- Tony La Russa put a positive spin on an otherwise disappointing split with a second-division team.
“Well, there ain’t no bad win,” said a smiling La Russa.
That may be true, but there is such a thing as a shortage of good wins, the ones that provide some sort of template for repeatable success. The White Sox have won only one of their last five series, going 1-3-1. They swept the Giants are Oracle Park, and that's about it.
Likewise, they have a dearth of solid, sturdy, reliable wins against proven big-league pitching. Tuesday's victory in Game 2 of the doubleheader in Cleveland, while welcome, is the latest example.
Tuesday: Dylan Cease, the White Sox's best starter, bests Konnor Pilkington, an up-and-down left-handed rookie making an emergency start in a doubleheader.
Sunday: The aforementioned Grossman game.
Saturday: Johnny Cueto, the White Sox's most consistent starter, shuts down the AL's worst offense while the White Sox beat up on Garrett Hill, who was making his second career start.
July 6: A terrific show of resilience by erasing margins five different times en route to a 10-inning victory over the Twins.
July 3: Lucas Giolito and the Sox offense beats up on a Johnny Wholestaff effort by San Francisco.
The day before, Dylan Cease outpitched Logan Webb in the Sox's 5-3 victory over the Giants, which was the White Sox's last straightforward win against a team that pitched one of its rotation fixtures.
That may read as overly granular to some eyes, because a 162-game season features a lot of teams simply seeking to cross the day off the calendar, but I think it's reflective of why individual White Sox victories stopped feeling like a turning point, no matter how impressive the box score looks. The White Sox rotation may not be firing on all cylinders, but it's deep and credible enough to beat other teams' original one-through-five options on a repeatable basis. Yet somehow those victories are few and far between.
That adds some significance to tonight's White Sox-Guardians game, even beyond the inherent importance of Lucas Giolito and/or the Sox offense helping narrow the season series gap with Cleveland. The Sox are facing Aaron Civale, who is one of baseball's worst starters when judging his season as a whole (6.28 ERA, -1.1 WAR), but he's been decent since coming off the injured list last month (3.18 ERA over five starts).
Also, he's a right-handed pitcher who has been and will be part of the Guardians' five-man rotation so long as he's healthy. He may be a right-handed pitcher who only averages 91 with a fastball, but we can't be picky. The Sox are dealing with the unfortunate combination of having the third-worst performance against righties by all important measures (.245/.300/.358) and the second-most plate appearances against them (2,369, second only to Tampa Bay). The food is terrible and the portions are huge.
This heaping helping of their weakness exacerbates the White Sox's third-worst home run total against right-handed in terms of game-to-game impact.
| Team | PA | HR | PA/HR |
|---|---|---|---|
| Yankees | 2360 | 101 | 23.4 |
| Astros | 2285 | 90 | 25.4 |
| Twins | 2446 | 87 | 28.1 |
| Angels | 2318 | 81 | 28.6 |
| Blue Jays | 2667 | 93 | 28.7 |
| Rangers | 2306 | 72 | 32.0 |
| Mariners | 2405 | 70 | 34.4 |
| Orioles | 2280 | 62 | 36.8 |
| Rays | 2427 | 62 | 39.1 |
| Red Sox | 2535 | 60 | 42.3 |
| Guardians | 2344 | 53 | 44.2 |
| Royals | 2377 | 51 | 46.6 |
| Athletics | 2250 | 47 | 47.9 |
| WHITE SOX | 2639 | 50 | 52.8 |
| Tigers | 2330 | 41 | 56.8 |
Basically, it's a minor miracle if the White Sox hit a homer off a right-handed pitcher in consecutive games.
Luis Robert gave the Sox a head start on a potential streak with his late homer off Bryan Shaw on Tuesday. Now here comes Civale, who is underpowered, fly-ball prone and susceptible to reverse splits over his career (.806 OPS vs. RHB; .687 OPS vs. LHB).
Basically, Civale is the kind of pitcher the White Sox need to start showing up against. if only because the White Sox's inherent flaws make surprises against Shane Bieber-grade arms difficult to spring. The Guardians also happen to be the kind of team Giolito needs to best, especially when he's the better pitcher on paper. Add them together, and this game feels unusually critical for a first-half matchup, if only because it better reflects the kind of games the Sox will need to win in order to make up ground.
