Angels 12, White Sox 5: Mike Trout, Shohei Ohtani put on show
According to the Tungsten Arm O’Doyle theory, when Mike Trout and Shohei Ohtani team up for unprecedented feats, the Angels usually lose.
Today wasn’t one of those days. Trout jumped Lance Lynn for a two-run cannon blast in the first inning, and Ohtani left the yard twice, including a two-run shot that rivaled Trout’s in length. Throw in Jared Walsh two-run double, and the Angels made life miserable for Lynn, who gave up eight runs over four innings.
The White Sox offense didn’t truly activate until they were trailing by 10 in the ninth inning, but Lynn’s foundering would’ve rendered most other efforts moot.
Trout’s homer was initially measured at 476 feet before a revised estimate put it at 461. Ohtani’s second two-run shot came up two feet short, but Lynn had no interest in watching it just the same.
The White Sox were in the game for about two innings, as Gavin Sheets hit a sac fly with the bases loaded to make it a 2-1 game after two. But Ohtani’s first homer and the Walsh double made it a 6-1 game after three, and the hill became that much steeper.
Jesse Scholtens gave up a two-run shot of his own to Taylor Ward in the seventh inning, but he could say he outpitched Lynn. That’s all the damage he allowed over four innings, and he needed just 65 pitches to Lynn’s 89. Thursday’s off day allows the Sox to skip Scholtens’ spot in the rotation for when Mike Clevinger comes back, so Pedro Grifol chose to spare the bullpen.
The only standard reliever who appeared was Garrett Crochet, who had position-player-pitching results by giving up three hits and two runs during the ninth inning, including a solo shot by Chad Wallach.
At ;least the White Sox were able to pad some stats themselves in the ninth. Jake Burger hit a solo shot off Tucker Davidson, and Luis Robert Jr.,. Eloy Jiménez and Hanser Alberto were able to string togehter three straight hits for two more runs, but Davidson endured to retire Andrew Vaughn for one of the more unusual save lines you’ll see: 3 IP, 7 H, 4 R, 4 ER, 0 BB, 2 K.
Bullet points:
*Tim Anderson had a second extra-base hit before the month came to a close, doubling and coming around to score on Clint Frazier’s single in the seventh.
*Romy González went 0-for-4 with two strikeouts, so his hot streak was interrupted at the very least.
*Burger finished the game at second base, recording an assist on a routine chance.
*The White Sox finished May with a 15-14 record after dropping two of three to the Angels.
Record: 23-35 | Box score | Statcast
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My roommate is an Angels fan and I’ve had to buy him dinner after basically every SOX-LAA series for several years running.
Boom steak dinner?
Two months (1/3) of the season over, 18 series played. Sox are 5-12-1. They have played 7 series vs the AL central and won 4. Against everyone else they are 1-9, plus the Astros split. The Reds are the only team outside of their division that they have won a series against. That is what is known as a turdshow.
Built to win the division!
Anyone catch Lynn’s teammates ‘em effing him during his lousy performance?
Lynn looks cooked. Everything over the plate is crushed, and he isn’t fooling anyone. Look for him to walk 6 next time out when he’s afraid to put anything over the plate. Sholtens looks stretched out and ready to go, time to DFA another big contract.
In fairness, he could have been worse. For example, he could have given up 8 earned runs in 3 innings instead of 4.
He looks like he needed to lose 20 lbs this off season, probably 40 lbs. 36 year olds need to be in the best shape of their life to compete and that’s if he was healthy which he wasn’t. He needed an intense rehab program, instead he appears to have gone on the David Wells plan. Just a complete waste, the checks cleared though I guess.
I dont think that mattered at all. Bartolo Colon pitched respectable baseball till his mid 40’s as the league’s fat uncle before age finally caught up.
MLB hitters are better against fatter pitchers, I’ve heard.
Bigger hitting background.
Detroit could be in 1st with a sweep of the Sox this weekend. Who’da thunk.
And of course Marisinick drove in the winning run today.
DFA Hahn
Glad fans who showed up to support the South Side Slouches were at least treated to seeing two legends hit prodigious blasts.
As always when I see teams with superstars, my first thought is: thank goodness Rick Hahn is too smart to agree to a 10 year $300 million contract! Just think, we’d be consigned to what might end up feeling like a decade or more of mediocrity.
The question is for how long are the White Sox continue to carry the corpse of Lynn? I know we have not pitching depth but Lynn is done. This is not a “I need another start to figure things out”. Perhaps a IL visit while figuring things out?
If the White Sox think they remotely have a chance to catch the Twins, it can’t be with this version of Lynn. An ERA of 6.55 entering June is not acceptable. FIP is low which puts Lynn in the ‘positive’ WAR at fangraphs, but baseball-reference is not as kind (-0.4 WAR).
They aren’t catching anyone, they peaked on Friday of last week. I’m for the dfa and replacing him with Scholtens. Lynn is passable against the AAAA lineups, but any decent lineup has torched him this year. The SP was the only thing keeping them floating last year, this is a 90 loss minimum team, and they need to sell everything they have to provide some SP options for 2025. next year is a tank for sure.
The best thing I can say about Lance Lynn is that at least his contract is done after this season. Thanks for the last few years Lance, shame it had to end this way.
We’re officially donezo. The bullpen’s pretty excellent, the position player group isn’t stellar but has enough talent to compete with good teams. But only way this team could come back is if the rotation hit its (on paper, pretty high) 75th-80th ish percentile outcome. I’m not worried about Gio or Cease long-term, but neither have been sterling recently. Kopech’s high-octane talent is clearly still there, but it’s a coin flip at best as to if his mechanics will let the talent shine any given start. Clevinger’s a hard-throwing 5th starter. And Lance’s long career is coming to a close. Two years ago, his challenge fastballs had another 2-3mph and more rise, but now they’re just batting practice.
An imitation of the 2021 squad, powered by four 4+ fWAR SPs and a lethal bullpen back-end, was our best and last hope for salvaging this mess of a season. Not a one of our SPs is even close to that kind of production. There’s just not enough pitching here with Lance turning into a pumpkin.
Yeah when they were going good in the 1st half of 2021, both Lynn and Rodon had ERA’s near 2 going into June. Lynn’s ERA is more than triple that now. People can talk about how bad the Twins are supposed to be, they are 7 up on the Sox, with both Gray and Ryan pitching much better than anybody in our rotation. Nobody in their rotation is laying eggs like ours, either. They took 2 series and 4 of 6 from the Astros, and 4 of 7 from the Yankees, so it isn’t the schedule. Plus the Guardians have several guys off to very slow starts. I see it as at least as likely for the Guards to start playing better than this ill-constructed and poorly coached roster. The Sox June schedule is brutal, and should put an exclamation mark on how done this team is, for any who doubt that.
Pretty much time to trade off guys who will be gone soon, and hope for a high draft pick next year. I think will be very obvious even to Hahn well before July.
I hear JR might be willing to offer Ohtani an 8 year contract with two additional team options.
$7.5 million per (we’re not trying to set records here), BUT if Ohtani wins a Cy Young and breaks the HR record in the same year, there are escalators that can get this deal to $99.9999999 million!!!!
The buyout is $1 million a year for 200 years.
Seat at the table is guaranteed.
First game of the year for me in person and as is tradition my $14 beer was 1/2 foam. Love to see that the year over year improvement in stadium experience matches the year over year improvement on field.
It’s a good thing there’s rotation depth so Hahn can Old Yeller Lynn.
I’m staying positive only because it’s such a lousy division. They could go out and take 3 from Detroit and be back in it. I usually give up in August. I refuse to give up in June.