Whether he's 24 or 42, the task at hand was the same for the White Sox facing Justin Verlander:
Wait him out.
Verlander, making his 49th career start against the White Sox, survived a barrage of deep flies early and ordinary flies later to throw six innings of one-run ball. With the Giants leading 2-1, Verlander had a chance of picking up his first victory for San Francisco, and ending the franchise-record 12-start winless streak to open a season.
But as soon as Verlander departed, the floodgates opened for a four-run seventh that allowed the White Sox to steal a series against a National League contender.
Mike Tauchman and Chase Meidroth spent the entire rain-spattered afternoon setting the table for the White Sox offense, and did so again in the seventh when they both singled off Erik Miller with one out. Austin Slater mercifully ran for Tauchman, whose gait still appeared limited when he scored on a Benintendi sac fly in the first inning, and both runners advanced into scoring position when Benintendi hit a weak grounder to the right side for the second out.
Miguel Vargas, who got rung up on a pitch off the plate for Verlander's only strikeout to strand Tauchman and Meidroth in his previous plate appearance, survived an even worse 2-1 slider from righty reliever Ryan Walker that evened the count to draw a bases-loading walk. Kyle Teel followed, and in the biggest plate appearance of his career to date, roped a knee-high slider into the right field corner to put the White Sox back in the lead, 3-2.
"I was looking for something hard, I got something soft," Teel said. "I just stayed through it and took a good swing."
Walker then compounded his own problems by stuttering on his delivery and failing to release the ball, which balked home an insurance run, and Lenyn Sosa capped it off with a single to right--another hit on an 0-2 count--for a three-run lead.
"He’s being more patient early in the count but still dangerous," said Will Venable. "We know he’ll get his swings off and it’s working for him right now.
With Grant Taylor unavailable after his two-inning save Saturday, Venable was back to his familiar position of improvising in high leverage, and he made it work. Tyler Gilbert, who took over for Dan Altavilla and retired the final two batters of the seventh, came out for the eighth and promptly hit Jung Hoo Lee. Christian Koss followed with a single, and although he struck out Patrick Bailey, he unwisely walked Brett Wisely to load the bases.
Venable then went to the bullpen for Mike Vasil, who ended the inning on two pitches. He bored a 1-0 sinker in on the hands of Heliot Ramos and induced a routine 6-4-3 double play to end the threat. He then came out for the ninth and followed the same script, getting a 3-6-3 double play to end the game. His second save is good enough to own a share of the team lead with Taylor and Brandon Eisert.
"It definitely didn't get any easier," Vasil said of his second time dealign with the adrenaline of a save chance. "Honestly I would say more on the attack than usual [in relief]. Even with two strikes, I don't want to dance around the strike zone as much. I really want to get the ball in play on the ground, easy outs. The more that team can work an at-bat, that's when you get in trouble. They're patient, they'll get on base and then they'll have on big swing."
Venable effectively had to manage a bullpen game by another name. Jonathan Cannon wasn't in a position to be pushed in his first start off the injured list, and he ran into enough traffic to reach his high-stress pitch count after three innings.
Cannon worked around a leadoff single by Ramos in the first, but the next two innings turned into slogs. He erased a leadoff walk with a double play in the second, but another walk kept the inning alive, and after a stolen base, Patrick Bailey cashed it in with a double to right field, tying the game at 1.
In the third, he walked Rafael Devers with one out, then gave up a single to Wilmer Flores to put him at 60 pitches through 2⅓ innings. With the writing on the wall, it at least allowed Cannon to rely on his best pitch the rest of the way, without worrying about sequences for later. He threw two of them to Mike Yastrzemski, which allowed him to get the strikeout on a plate-splitting cutter that Yaz swung under, and then he threw four straight changeups to Willy Adams, and struck him out as well.
"My favorite at-bat of the day was Adames in the third inning, being able to kind of rely on that changeup, go to it four times in a row and get three swing and misses on a really good hitter," Cannon said. "That pitch has definitely performed a lot better than it did last year. It has a lot to do with the consistency and the location have been really good for the most part."
Cannon's final line -- 3 IP, 3 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 3 BB, 4 K -- fails to impress as a full-fledged starter, but given that he wasn't going to throw more than 80 pitches this afternoon, he could be judged more like a spot starter, and you'd take that line from a Vasil or a Tyler Alexander.
Bullet points:
*Tauchman and Meidroth combined to go 5-for-8 at the top of the order, and Austin Slater made it 6-for-9 with a bunt single in the eighth. Teel had three hits as well.
*Jordan Leasure was in line for the loss after a three-walk fifth, including a free pass that forced home the go-ahead run. That's not going to help his WPA any.
*Chase Meidroth stole his 10th base of the season with a very clever slide. Bailey's throw beat him to second by plenty, so Meidroth had enough time to slide feet-first, dig in to stop short and avoid Wisely's swipe tag, then step on the base. He was initially called out, but the replay was conclusive.
INSANE move by Chase Meidroth 🤯 pic.twitter.com/RP6gSpZr57
— White Sox on CHSN (@CHSN_WhiteSox) June 29, 2025
*The White Sox finished June with a 10-16 record. That's slightly disappointing when considering the 5-4 start, but slightly heartening considering the eight-game losing streak in the middle of it.
*Venable at least gave rise to the notion that Robert could have a minimum stay on the 10-day injured list.
"[Robert] just wasn’t in a place where we thought he was going to progress," Venable said. "Just to do the right thing by the player, we want to be cautious, put him on the IL. Still think it will be fairly quick, not overly concerned. Don’t want to push him and put him in a bad spot."
