Earlier statistical queries of Tuesday evening in Rate Field centered around confirming that four straight victories would match a 2025 season high, or finding out when's the last time the White Sox recorded three consecutive shutouts.
As the hour shifted past 9 p.m. local time, so did the topic at hand move to anecdotally recalling the last time the Sox convincingly locked down a late lead, as the bullpen woes that dogged them on their last road trip finally arrived home to Chicago.
Jordan Leasure's string of convincing outings came to an end as he was summoned to protect a four-run lead in the eighth, despite getting to two outs and one on with the bottom of the Royals order at hand. Adam Frazier flattened his barrel to push a 2-2 high heater back up the middle, before pinch hitter Kyle Isbel worked a six-pitch walk to load the bases, turn the lineup over and force a need-based call for Grant Taylor to pull off a four-out save.
Taylor struck out longtime Sox killers Witt and Salvador Perez, but no one in between them. Maikel Garcia fought off a first-pitch fastball on his hands to plate two runs in the eighth before Taylor got Witt to wave through a backup slider to end the eighth. But as it turned out, Witt wasn't the final boss.
Vinnie Pasquantino singled on an 0-2 curve that stayed up to start things off in the ninth, and after Perez struck out, Mike Yastrzemski fought off a knee-high bender for another single, before Jonathan India drilled a fastball that only came in at 96 mph to load the bases and chase Taylor. Will Venable hoped Tyler Alexander with the platoon advantage would stanch the bleeding, only to watch Michael Massey perfectly place a game-tying bloop down the right field line to tie it, before Isbel flipped a knee-high sweeper over a drawn-in infield to put the Royals up for good.
Kansas City had the luxury of a proven closer in Carlos Estevez to turn to, and his 1-2-3 ninth sealed that seven shutout innings from Martín Pérez went to waste. India's single was the only Royal hit in the ninth that cracked triple digits in exit velocity, but that's not how this sport is scored anyway.
Dotting inner-half sinkers to righties with changeups behind it, hard contact against Pérez either came from Bobby Witt Jr. (whose fourth-inning single was the only Royal hit in seven frames of work), came in the seventh inning, or simply didn't come at all. Witt's single was wiped out literally four pitches later as Pasquantino rolled over a sinker, and the deep flyouts from Witt and Perez in the seventh were just a helpful reminder to get the final two innings from the bullpen.
But that's when the help began to dissipate.
Very slowly and only somewhat surely, the White Sox offense had staked out a 4-0 advantage to back Pérez, even if the crucial blows never quite looked definitive.
Colson Montgomery's daily home run was the only hit either side managed in the first two innings, as he was blatantly late on a first-pitch Michael Lorenzen fastball judging both by trajectory and Montgomery's own reaction. Embodying the shrug emoji as his 98 mph shank clanked off the left field foul pole, Montgomery's solo shot held up as the only scoring -- and with Curtis Mead grounding into one double play while Lenyn Sosa lined into another, the only thing that came close to scoring -- until hot local singles took over the bottom of the sixth.
First-pitch hunting as always, Brooks Baldwin lined a curveball through the infield to open the inning before Mike Tauchman achieved the same result by blooping a ball into short left. When Lorenzen foiled Miguel Vargas' efforts to lay down a bunt by walking him, the White Sox had the bases loaded with nobody out. What the following five at-bats lacked in catharsis, they made up for it in that all three runners eventually scored.
Kyle Teel felt a first-pitch sweeper at shoetop height looked attractive, and beauty is in the eye of the beholder, since he sprayed a short liner that dropped too close in front of Tyler Tolbert in center to consider sending Mike Tauchman from second. Low-slot righty John Schreiber was tabbed to stopped the bleeding, and despite the new pitcher, Sosa was also first-pitch hunting as always. But after fouling back a cookie slider, Sosa stayed inside a sinker on his hands just enough to muscle another single-run-scoring single through the left side.
Vargas had every intention of scoring on Sosa's single before a late stop sign from Justin Jirschele, which had the awkward timing of coming just as the good at-bats dried up. Montgomery popped up a fastball on his hands before Michael A. Taylor swung through another. But just before Andrew Benintendi could make it back-to-back strikeouts, Schreiber bounced an 0-2 changeup that in turn, bounced away from Perez to complete a three-run frame.
It felt like a satisfactory effort at the time, but the Sox would wind up feeling the weight of the runs left on the table.
Bullet points:
*As you may have heard, Montgomery has homered in four straight games.
*Luis Robert Jr. exited the game after the third inning with left hamstring soreness per the team, and is still being evaluated.
*Four different Sox relievers combined for the final six outs. They allowed five runs on eight hits with a walk in the process of securing them.
