Cardinals 3, White Sox 0: It’s still the offense
Touki Toussaint helped turn what was supposed to be a White Sox bullpen day into a normal, respectable fifth-starter outing. He pitched five effective-enough innings, and three White Sox relievers followed to limit the Cardinals to three runs on eight hits and three walks over nine innings while striking out 14.
And it didn’t matter, because Miles Mikolas and two Cardinals relievers held the White Sox to seven fruitless singles for a relatively stress-free shutout.
St. Louis pitchers just pounded the strike zone for 96 of their 131 pitches on the afternoon, and nobody in the White Sox lineup could find a way to do damage. Andrew Vaughn had a couple of well-struck balls for outs, and a couple of less-well-struck balls for singles, but nobody else drew a bead on what was being thrown their way. Three of their hits stayed in the infield.
The Cardinals scored the only run they needed in the second when Toussaint allowed three singles for a run. They added insurance in the fifth on a leadoff single that advanced to second on a groundout, third on a brain-fart balk, and home on a chopper that developed slowly enough to score a run. Jordan Walker added a solo shot off Tanner Banks in the ninth.
Outside of the balk, all this was normal mortal pitcher stuff. Toussaint and Banks, along with Aaron Bummer and Reynaldo López in between, were fine. They struck out 14 batters for the ninth time this season. They’re 0-9 in such games. Isn’t 13 supposed to be the cursed number?
Bullet points:
*Zach Remillard made a nice diving stop and throw at second base to retire Lars Nootbar in the first inning.
*Tim Anderson almost made an incredible play on a grounder by Nolan Arenado that deflected off Jake Burger, but Arenado beat it by a sliver of a step. If Vaughn is 6’2″, the ball might’ve found mitt in time.
Record: 38-53 | Box score | Statcast
Author
The Cards are the 20th series the Sox have played outside of the AL Central. If they win tomorrow, it will be their 4th. 4-16, and that’s if they win.
They are no longer mired in mediocrity. They are in full throttle turd mode!
The new schedule has exposed that the Sox built a roster to win the AL Central by playing the unbalanced old schedule of 76 games against division opponents.
Cant let games go when Toussaint and this BP only give up 3 runs. It wasnt pretty pitching, but it was pitching you could win with an average offense. Just the same old thing, but this doesnt feel like they are going to try to fix it, instead “hope” guys turn it around and have an incredible final month to “make some damage” in the post season. I can see the deadline now, itll be a bunch of national guys saying the White Sox are going to sell, then they don’t and instead buy a low grade bullpen arm and still finish 15 games under. It’ll turn off the national guys and piss fans off because the hype was never met. Its why no one likes this team, they cant even accomplish the simplest of things, all in the name of “hope” and “Loyalty”
No chance they are not selling (covetous as Hahn might be for another reliever!) being 7-8 games behind two teams. Jerry will want to cut payroll with 24th attendance, undoubtedly. Only remaining question is how deep will the selling go, and what will they get back.
Even if they were 4 games out, with bad attendance Jerry might still want to sell. He did that 2 1/2 decades ago when they were like 3 1/2 out or something, b/c money matters to him more than anything else.
Nothing to sell, nothing to build around.
Hahn doing the selling? What can go wrong?
Selling is the only thing Hahn has shown an ability to do.
Selling your backbone doesn’t count
Although it’s hopeless with this front office, I don’t agree with the first half of that. Gio, Lynn, and Graveman most certainly are worth something. With Gio being possibly the best player in MLB who will be traded, I think Hahn will get multiple offers.
I think at least one good/interesting prospect has to come the Sox way at the very least.
And Hahn will be in charge of identifying said prospect. We will be lucky if we get anybody with a pulse.
With all his incompetence, he still got Giolito and Dunning for Eaton, plus Cease and Eloy for Quintana. He is a doofus, but there is still a decent chance that they get something for Gio, since he may be the best player to move before the deadline.
Maybe not anything great, but that’s all Sox fans have to look forward to at this point. Time to move on from this scourge of a team.
Giolito should fetch a top 100 prospect which could instantly become our 2nd best prospect after Montgomery
Lopez also came over in that trade, FWIW. And Dunning then went to get Lynn. Cease and Eloy for Quintana did obtain talent, Cease being a Cy Young runner up, and Eloy a natural bat when not hurt.
(But Eloy was injury prone even before the trade…and anyone looking could see he wasn’t adept playing D.)
Cueto and Andrus last year turned out to be very good moves for 22. Then there’s Diekman coming over for McGwire, which was a mystery…Who came up with that trade…who wanted it?
KW’s name seems to not come up much in analyzing Hahn as GM, but Hahn reports to Kenny…and JR has said he thinks KW is a brilliant talent evaluator, and has never said anything like that about Hahn. So all the Sox moves are impossible to sort as to who actually made the choices…and that’s just the way JR wants it.
Despite some reasonably good trades, the roster ended up very unbalanced, full of players who had holes in their bucket and/ or were DH/ 1B. And the money was spent at times, but as it’s obvious now, unwisely. Eternal holes at 2B and RF somehow stayed TBD.
And the biggest contract is for Benintendi. Nuff said.
The “Aim for Second Trio” did it, and we can safely blame all of them,
but as to who “makes the trades”…it’s definitely not just Hahn.
Right now I’d have more faith in another teams GM handling any trades for Sox
JR still has nightmares about his quick trigger of ’97 trade so he’ll show more patience this time
I do not think they are finishing 15 games under. It’ll be under 20 or more. Maybe 30 games under after Hahn sells.
I agree, I think over 2023/24 they will lose between 190 and 200. A good bet for 95 this year when Lynn/Gio and others are dealt.
How bad Anderson is cannot be understated. Driveline screwed him up royally. Wonder if Howard Ankin is considering litagation,
Didn’t watch the game even though I had nothing else planned to do today. Yesterday I quasi watched it. I am slowly checking out.
I’m already there. That Blue Jays series was so much more tolerable in 10 min highlight videos. I tentatively plan to return to full games in 2025.
Eye inflammation?
I didn’t see the game but noticed an odd line for Robert courtesy ESPN:
1st: Robert Jr. flied out to second.
4th: Robert Jr. singled to left.
6th: Robert Jr. flied out to second.
9th: Robert Jr. flied out to shortstop
“Flied” out to the infield three times? What were those plays like?
I think hes just trying to hit dingers cause its not like if he gets on base people will drive him in more then 10% of the time
Tomorrow Lucas Giolito starts. Perhaps his last start with the White Sox, but Hahn is truly bad at his job, so who knows.
I’m hoping he ends up on the Dodgers somehow. He deserves to play for a good organization
Dodgers/Rangers would seem two of the best trade partners and likely top suitors.
What players come back? We need more speed and athleticism; that’s what the new rules are showing.
I want him to go to The Reds. I want that fun team to watch to make a real run of it in the postseason this year but they really need more pitching.
It would take India and one or two low A lottery picks in exchange.
India had a very good rookie year. Last year and this year he has had an ops+ below 100 and is a defensive negative. India would start for the Sox but he’s not someone to get excited about.
”Bring dynamite / And a crane
Blow it up / Start all over again”
— John D. Loudermilk, Tobacco Road