If there was a theme to this weekend, it's that the White Sox couldn't wait to see Red Sox relievers -- except they had to wait, because they couldn't knock out Red Sox starters.
That's not great for the Boston bullpen, but it's a bigger problem for the White Sox offense, because that only leaves them the final innings to make up a deficit. Perhaps they had reason to see it as a recipe for success considering they rallied on Sunday after taking it to extra innings on Saturday, but realistically, it's more likely to end as quietly as it did this morning/afternoon. Andrew Benintendi was able to sock a solo shot off Aroldis Chapman in the eighth inning to make it a two-run game, but the White Sox could draw no closer. The Red Sox won the series 3-1, and the season series 4-3, with a 4-2 victory on the wraparound Patriots Day matinee.
Walker Buehler completed the set for the Red Sox rotation, and with a flourish. He faced early trouble with back-to-back singles to open the game, but once Edgar Quero's slow bouncer scored Nick Maton for a productive out, Buehler was able to put the game back on his terms. He allowed just two other hits and two walks over his remaining six innings, and while the walks opened the third inning, he struck out Luis Robert Jr. and Quero before getting Lenyn Sosa to pop out to end the threat.
Sosa ended up notching the last hit off Buehler his next time up in the sixth, but this one came with two outs and nobody on. Buehrler pitched around it, and then completed a seventh inning to finish off a fine series of starts from the Boston rotation:
- Walker Buehler: 7 IP, 4 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 3 BB, 9 K
- Tanner Houck: 6 IP, 3 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 2 BB, 7 K
- Garrett Crochet: 6 IP, 4 H, 0 R, 2 BB, 7 K
- Hunter Dobbins: 6 IP, 3 H, 2 R, 1 ER, 0 BB, 6 K
Jonathan Cannon endured for six innings, even though the Red Sox took comfortable swings against him all day. He managed to limit the bulk of the damage to the third inning, in which the Red Sox hit four 100-mph line drives around a pair of walks. Three of those drives landed as hits -- a Jarren Duran double that got things going, a Trevor Story single that put Boston ahead 2-1, and then a Kristian Campbell base hit through the right side that scored two more.
Otherwise, Cannon only suffered a second-inning solo shot by Rob Refsnyder, which had the misfortune of coming on a higher-than-high 0-2 fastball that Refsnyder somehow tomahawked, but the good fortune of coming after a slick 3-6 double play Nick Maton started to clear the bases. Cannon finished his afternoon by retiring 11 of the final 12 batters he faced, although generating just five whiffs on 90 pitches makes it hard to know whether it's a confidence-booster. If nothing else, he limited the bullpen usage to just Tyler Gilbert and Penn Murfee as the 10-game, 10-day road trip heads to Minnesota, and it went better than Lucas Giolito's Patriots Day start in 2021, so he's got that going for him.
Bullet points:
*The White Sox went 0-for-10 with runners in scoring position.
*Lenyn Sosa saved Cannon a baserunner with a diving catch in the first, which helped strand a pair of walks.
*Bobby Dalbec made both his White Sox debut and his Fenway return by pinch-hitting for Maton against Chapman in the eighth. He struck out.
