We could probably all stand to think about the 2022 Cleveland Guardians less, but Rays rookie speedster Chandler Simpson has the look of someone designed in a lab to flummox previous iterations of the White Sox defense.
His four-hit performance on Thursday, opened by a single and his 40th stolen base of the year, seemed like what used to be the ingredients of a chaotic afternoon. Instead, with Shane Smith's aggressive fastball-centered attack meeting a patient Rays' team approach, there were a lot of long at-bats, but none of them ended in a hit with Simpson on base until the eight inning when the Sox were already up five runs.
Tampa's best opportunity came in the sixth when it was still just a 2-0 game, when Smith followed hanging a curve to Simpson with a walk to Brandon Lowe to put the first two runners on for Junior Caminero. With 42 home runs and 29 double plays grounded into on the year, Caminero provides consistent hard contact but is not too discerning on the type, so Smith pounded him with sinkers until he reached No. 30.
"Just trying to lean on both fastballs," Smith said. "You just don’t want to give him a four-seam thigh-high. Make him put something in the ground because if he puts something in the air, he hits it so hard it’s always dangerous."
Smith's biggest moment of catharsis in 17 outs of scoreless baseball was also his finale, as Will Venable yanked him at 98 pitches rather than have him face Josh Lowe a third time. Christopher Morel pinch hit for the lefty in response, but that just meant Tyler Gilbert struck him out with a cutter rather than a sweeper to strand Simpson once more.
"He's a fighter," Korey Lee said of Smith, who lowered his ERA to 3.78 on the year. "He pitches his ass off out there and that's what he did today. Good things happen when we have a competitor out there."
It would be hard to shift much blame to Simpson when he had four of the Rays' seven hits, even as Smith gave way to a string of lower leverage options, as Gilbert, Brandon Eisert and Tyler Alexander delivered the game to the ninth with only an RBI groundout from Caminero in the eighth to show for it. But for whatever reason, the Sox offensive breakthroughs seemed to involve Simpson.
Returned to the leadoff spot with Mike Tauchman getting a day off, Chase Meidroth led off the bottom of the first by poking a single up the middle off Rays starter Ian Seymour. When Seymour split the plate with a 1-1 cutter to Curtis Mead, his former teammate banged a liner that took off on Simpson to left, zooming over his head and over his outreached glove to place a pair of runners in scoring position for Colson Montgomery. It hasn't been Montgomery's best series, and he's now struck out twice in four-straight games. But he can still extend his arms for a fastball away, and drilled a hard grounder to right-center to plate a pair, effectively delivering the margin of victory 20 minutes into the game.
"it’s a good step in the right direction, but there’s more to do," said Meidroth, who reached base four times. "We are just trying to build on top of each game and learn how to continue to play together and build up momentum rolling into next year."
Seymour largely handcuffed Sox hitters with his changeup from there. Yet after yielding a leadoff single to Edgar Quero followed by striking out Montgomery to open the sixth, he was pulled for righty Eric Orze over the prospect of facing Miguel Vargas a third time. As it turns out, when the Rays bullpen door opened, chaos walked through as well. Orze first hit Vargas with a two-strike splitter before hanging a slider to Michael A. Taylor, which he seemed to swing just under, producing a hard hit ball that still had routine fly out trajectory to deep center. It was there, again, after the Rays shifted their outfield to accommodate Morel, that the game found Simpson again.
Taylor's high fly kept carrying and drifting right in the wind, taking Simpson back to the fence and running along the fence until the ball clanged off his glove as he collided with the wall. The resulting scramble saw Taylor only reach first as Quero scored from second. But the Sox centerfielder simply stole second a few pitches before Brooks Baldwin drew a walk to make his work irrelevant. In either case two runs were in position to score when Kyle Teel pinch hit for Lee, and blooped a sinker a foot wide of the plate just over shortstop Carson Williams' head into short left.
"The right spot, bases loaded there," said Venable. "Kyle has been outstanding ever since he’s been here at the plate. Korey I thought had good at-bats today, but in that spot with that matchup, it was a pretty clear decision to me that Kyle was the right guy."
Jordan Leasure polished a perfect ninth in decidedly routine fashion, which is starting to feel slightly normal.
Bullet points:
*Meidroth has always been known for the verticality of his game
went up & got it 🤯 pic.twitter.com/hT184rn6xq
— Chicago White Sox (@whitesox) September 11, 2025
"Just trying to jump as high as I can, I don't know," Meidroth said.
*Quero snapped an 0-for-12 skid with a single to lead off the sixth, and reacted like he had snapped an 0-for-30 after rounding first. The insufferable burden of having high personal standards.
*The Sox need a 6-9 finish to avoid their third-straight 100 loss season.
*Grant Taylor remains day-to-day with his right groin strain. He's unlikely to pitch in Cleveland this weekend but the White Sox are not placing him on the IL for now.
"I threw that last pitch and felt something in my groin. Didn’t want to push it and really see how far I could test it, hurt it more," Taylor said. "It’s going to be all based off how it feels. We’ll see in the next few days."
