Royals 12, White Sox 5: Disastrous Sixth Inning Sinks Sox
The Chicago White Sox wanted to keep the good vibes rolling from Cincinnati. In Pedro Grifol’s return to Kansas City, things were looking up for the White Sox after Andrew Vaughn belted a two-run double in the third inning. That gave the White Sox a 3-1 lead, and with their ace starting pitcher Dylan Cease on the mound, it should have been a gateway to another victory.Â
Alas, this is 2023, and whatever good thing happens doesn’t last long for the White Sox.
Cease had another rough outing in what has been a disappointing first quarter for him, and Aaron Bummer couldn’t stop the bleeding. The Royals scored eight runs in the sixth inning to run away from the White Sox, winning 12-5.
Tonight’s issue for Cease was the four-seam fastball. Too often, Cease was pulling the pitch into the left-hander’s box, and when it was near the zone, the Royals didn’t have much issue against the heater. On 23 swings, the Royals only whiffed twice against Cease’s fastball despite averaging 96.4 mph, almost a full mile per hour faster than his season average.
One fastball placement burned Cease in the fourth inning. Facing MJ Melendez, Cease doubled up on a four-seamer. Melendez whiffed on the first one, but Cease put the next one too close to the previous location. It didn’t fool Melendez, who crushed it for a two-run shot at a distance of 431 feet, and the game was tied 3-3.Â
In the fifth inning, the Royals broke the tie thanks to doubles from Jackie Bradley Jr. and Vinnie Pasquantino. But Gavin Sheets helped out Cease in the top of the sixth inning. In a tense battle against Royals starter Zack Greinke, Sheets battled for ten pitches before crushing a middle-middle changeup for a solo home run. His fourth of the season tied it 4-4.Â
Grifol had Cease start the sixth inning, and it wasn’t pleasant. Cease allowed a single to Edward Olivares and then hit Nick Pratto with a pitch. Maikel Garcia attempted to lay down a bunt, but Cease would eventually walk him to load the bases with no outs. At that time, Grifol lifted Cease for Aaron Bummer to handle the upcoming Royals left-handed hitters.
Here’s how it went for Bummer against the Royals’ left-handers:
- Michael Massey RBI single
- Jackie Bradley Jr. two-run double
- Vinnie Pasquantino grounded out
- MJ Melendez two-run single
Four left-handed hitters faced, and Bummer allowed three hits that generated five runs. Grifol would replace Bummer with Jimmy Lambert, and the fun didn’t stop for the Royals. With the bases loaded again, Pratto doubled to left field, clearing the bases for three more runs. Suddenly, the Royals put up a snowman on the scoreboard, and it was 12-4.
Here’s how bad it’s going for Bummer: he’s allowed more earned runs (14) than strikeouts (13) this season.
After Bummer struggled, Cease’s final line was also ugly: 5 IP 9 H 7 ER 1 BB 6 K. The season ERA is now 5.58, and Cease doesn’t look like the guy everyone saw on Opening Day against Houston. Â
Hanser Alberto added another RBI to his season total in the eighth inning as the White Sox finished with five runs. Unfortunately, the White Sox couldn’t put together a touchdown drive in the ninth inning to pull off another miracle.Â
Game Notes:
- Luis Robert Jr. committed a fielding error in the eighth inning dropping a fly ball.
- White Sox offense put together eight hits with three walks while just striking out four times. They finished 2-for-7 with runners in scoring position.
- Since 2021, the White Sox are 9-12 at Kauffman Stadium.
- The Royals improve to 4-16 at home.
Record: 12-24 | Box Score | StatCast
They just need to play the Reds about 80 times.
It just hit me that the White Sox have the third-worst record in MLB.
Chicago Bears got the #1 pick.
Chicago Blackhawks have the #1 pick.
Maybe the White Sox follow suit?
If they can just go 70-56 (.556) from here on out they’ll finish with a winning record. I’d probably enjoy that, but a little less if it means that this front office gets another off-season to not really improve the on-field product.
Since the FO isn’t going any where no matter if they go 70-56 or 60-66, you might as well enjoy whatever they give you. And wait. Nothing last forever.
“Surely they can’t have as bad of luck as they had last year.”
(Angry buzzer noise.)
The phrase “put up a snowman” was last used by Chicago sportswriters in the 19-teens. That was also when they used “Alabaster Hose” every other paragraph. Great early years of baseball lingo, Josh. This is why I keep coming back to SoxMachine!
woof
Luis Robert reminds us that last week was last week.
Baseball seasons sure do last for lots of weeks.
I’m not sure if it was the “center” field camera angle, but it looked like Cease was falling backward a little when he pushed off the mound. Perhaps he always does that, but when he did that last night more so than other pitches he put the ball in the left hand batter’s box. Anyone else notice this?
In Toronto, players do not need “rest days to keep them fresh” malarkey. Players are ready to play everyday
Link:
https://ca.yahoo.com/sports/news/mlb-blue-jays-have-effectively-been-playing-a-man-short-all-season-222433512.html
The Jays have the 6th best offense in the Majors, and yet they have scored 13 more runs than the White Sox. As I said in the Game-thread. The White Sox problems are basically pitching. The White Sox have allowed 221 runs this year.
Only the Athletics (268 runs) have allowed more runs. This team have allowed more runs than the Royals whose “ace” is Zack Greinke, and their other starters are Singer (who has been horrible), Lyles, Keller, and Lynch (remember when the White Sox used to kill Lynch, yeah…good times.)
The White Sox pitching staff have allowed an unfathomable 61 more runs than the Nationals where Patrick Corbin pitches every 5 days, and their 5th starter is Chad Kuh (9+ ERA), who is injured. SIXTY ONE more runs.
The White Sox have allowed 32 more runs than the Rockies that play in Denver and have a horrid pitching staff.
It has been pitching what has killed us. Ethan Katz should be concerned. It’s not that pitching has been bad. It has been horrendous. It hasn’t been for short stretches. It has been horrendous all year long. There are few in between cases with short stretches of decent performance, but they are short lived.
The White Sox need to fix the pitching. Maybe Katz didn’t know how to get their starters ready for the pitch clock or something. I cannot explain how an entire pitching staff is in shambles like this, and the only bright spots are from pitchers Katz hasn’t touched in previous years.
I wonder if the Sox have had the same lineup 2 consecutive games this year.
I wonder if we’ve gone two days without someone being injured.
And the Sox have only 16 more runs in 2 more games than Cincinnati who’s 25th in runs scored. We are also coming off of a stretch of 54 runs scored in the past 9 games which is our best scoring run by far.
No doubt that pitching has been the biggest suck, but it has definitely been a collective suck.
Oh, and thank god for Oakland providing no competition for pitching suck.
The Sox have scored almost 25 percent of their season runs in 3 games. The Sox are 12th in runs, but if you replace their cloudburst of 17 runs vs the Reds with 5 runs, they are tied with KC for 22nd. I mean their offense has been dogshit more often than not, too. Not as bad as the pitching, but not good either.
In 36 games the Sox have scored 3 runs or less in 19, over 1/2 of them. Their hitting hasn’t been fine, either. There is absolutely nothing that this team does well.
All of that is true. We are not a hitting juggernaut, but we can’t cherry pick when we scored runs. You take away the Bluejays feast against us, and their offense looks mediocre. Sure, we would love better offense, but there is not enough offense in the world to counter the number of runs our pitching staff allows day in day out.
Our downfall is pitching. With an average pitching, and this mediocre offense, we could have maybe 5 or 6 more wins which would change their outlook dramatically. We only have 5 pitchers with an ERA under 4.
Giolito
Banks
Middleton
Santos
Scholtens
The list goes down to 4 if we use FIP.
We have 5 regulars pitchers with ERA above 5. Aaron Bummer carries a 10.80 ERA. ReyLo is over 8. The small sample size excuse is diluting with every passing game.
This pitching staff has been nothing but a disaster from top to bottom. Teams sometimes carry 2 or 3 struggling pitchers in waiting to gain their stuff. For the White Sox is pretty much the entire staff. I find this very unusual. Something is amiss.
Another very curious pearl:
The White Sox are 2nd to last in homers allowed (Thank you Athletics)
HOWEVER….and this is a very curious thing, the White Sox leads the majors in strikeouts with 357. The Twins are 2nd but the Twins are 25th in homers allowed. What is going on here?
Katz’s big focus is on the K’s. Not sure if it’s been effective or not. Mostly I think his handling of the BP has been horrible which is where you’d think K’s would benefit. Cleveland seems to be doing just fine with the fewest K’s, Oakland on the other hand is right there with Cleveland so I guess it depends.
The White Sox walk rate (pitchers) is atrocious. They K a lot of hitter, but they also give away a lot of free passes. Thanks to the Athletics again that the White Sox aren’t the worse. We are 3rd worst in BABIP. So, loads of walks, loads of homers, and a bad BABIP = recipe for disaster.
The White Sox are 2nd worst (thank you again A’s) in ground-balls ratio. It’s just too much contact in the air. Kopech leads the majors in HR allowed with Lynn following close. This is just a horror show.
I think it goes back to the over focus on K’s, poor location on the 4 seamers(overthrowing for speed?) and little control (and an over reliance) on the slider leads to lots of walks.
I think it’s partly the fact the entire staff has spotty control. So many times a pitcher will get two strikes and is unable to put away the hitter, and it leading to full counts that either end up in walks or hits.
Yep, too many non-competitive pitches. I know the defense ain’t great but there’s little difference between a walk and an error.
The White Sox have more opportunities to get Ks because they allow a ton of baserunners. They’re 6th in K%.
How bad their pitching has been is truly unreal.
Our offense would look a lot better if our pitching staff didn’t let other teams score so much!
The pitching staff says it’s a lot easier when you don’t show up for 8 of the 9 innings.
I ranked Cease as my most important whitesox heading into 2023 and I think a lot of people are seeing why … obviously a lot has gone wrong but when you have an ace consistently always winning you can stave off miserable stretches of baseball, unfortunately it goes the other way… when you keep losing on your aces start series losses and losing streaks come in bunches.
WTF is up with bummer? Just giving up everything from inherited runners and his own… lefties just mashing him. Even the one out he got from a lefty was hit hard.
I had Giolito. My thoughts were that if he needed to turn things around if the Sox were going to have any chance this season. He doesn’t have the strikeouts he’s had in previous years, but his walks are way down from last season. If you turn more into a contact pitcher, that’s key.
We waited too long to trade Cease.
Last week, I was thinking it was time to trade Burger.
You don’t want Rick Hahn picking your produce.
Baseball equivalent to Kitchen Nightmares with the Sox organization being exposed would be must see TV.
It would be nice to see an angry British person call Hahn a donkey.