When Sean Burke only got four swinging strikes on 85 pitches Monday night, he probably didn't realize that Aaron Civale would kill to have that kind of success.
Civale threw 79 pitches over four innings, and the Blue Jays swung at 29 of them. They only missed once, when Addison Barger swung through an 0-1 cutter with two outs in the first inning.
Civale made it through two innings unscathed, but he opened the third by rolling a pair of curveballs to Davis Schneider, and while Schneider pulled the first one just foul, he stayed back on the second and swatted it over the White Sox bullpen for the game's first run, and that's when the Blue Jays let loose.
By the time the smoke cleared, Toronto led 5-0, which was more than enough for the Blue Jays to win their 10th straight game, with a chance to tie their franchise record for consecutive wins in the series finale Wednesday afternoon.
The White Sox were lucky in two regards:
- The score could've been much worse.
- The skies opened up with two outs in the top of the seventh, so Civale's four innings covered more than half the game.
But that was about it.
There was nothing unlucky about Civale's third inning. He got Nathan Lukes to fly out, but then he walked George Springer, and the second wave of hard contact arrived. Vladimir Guerrero Jr. foiled an inside two-seamer and bounced it inside third base for an RBI double, then moved to third when Bo Bichette hit a single too hard at Austin Slater in left. Barger's 105.3 mph liner split the gap in right center to score Guerrero, and then Alejandro Kirk followed it up with a 104.5 mph singler to center to drive home Bichette, making it 4-0 Toronto.
Civale finally quieted the contact by sawing off Joey Loperfido, but even then, his broken bat pop-up landed in front of Lenyn Sosa, who could only get the force at second, and so Barger scored to push it out of a slam's reach.
That's where it stayed, because the White Sox were handcuffed by Chris Bassitt. Bassitt only recorded five whiffs himself, but he induced the useful form of contact, specifically double plays. Mike Tauchman opened the White Sox's portion of the evening with a double, and Lenyn Sosa filled in first when a Bassitt curveball clipped his jersey.
Five pitches later, the inning was over. Andrew Benintendi's harmless fly rut carried into another day with a first-pitch flyout to center, and then Miguel Vargas bounced into a 6-4-3 double play, setting the template for the rest of Bassitt's complete game.
When the White Sox put two on with one out in the second, Austin Slater -- starting against a righty for Brooks Baldwin, who was a late scratch -- rolled into a 4-6-3 to end the inning. That was the first of two twin killings off Slater's bat, as his 6-4-3 double play ended the fifth.
"Really good job down in the zone," Will Venable said of Bassitt. "He was able to induce the three double plays, two in the first two innings with us in a good spot with runners on first and second. That's what he does. He can get that soft contact, get you on the ground, play the north-south game, east-west. He can beat you in a lot of ways. For us our game plan was to get him up in the zone today and just didn't get much up there."
The White Sox were able to spoil the shutout before the weather intervened, as Josh Rojas turned on an inner-third fastball and turned it into his first homer of the season. At least somebody in the home dugout got something out of playing tonight.
Bullet points:
*Civale dropped to 0-4 with a 5.40 ERA in five starts with the White Sox. If it feels worse than that, it's probably because he had just 14 strikeouts against 13 walks, making everything feel fraught.
"He's a professional," Venable said. "He's got things he's got to work on, just continue to grind away and search for the best version of him."
*Venable improved his challenge success rate by going 2-for-2, and Sosa was involved in both. Home plate umpire didn't see/hear Sosa's jersey getting clipped in the first inning, and by winning that challenge, Venable was able to overturn a safe call at second, as Guerrero's swim move around Sosa's tag didn't quite work the way second base umpire Dan Iassogna saw it.
*Colson Montgomery committed his first error, as he was eaten up by a Lukes grounder hit right at him. At the plate, he was 1-for-2 with a bloop single to center on a high curveball.
*The Blue Jays outhit the White Sox 12-4. They ended up on the better side of the BABIP exchange, because the teams combined for just three strikeouts.
*Venable said postgame that Baldwin is day-to-day with low back tightness.
