One of the reasons why Seranthony Domínguez had been largely limited to the setup lifestyle was pronounced platoon splits. Lefties hit him 200 OPS points better than righties over the course of his career, and even pestered him during what was otherwise a successful season in 2025. While he extinguished right-handed threats with ease (.132/.269/.182), Domínguez still yielded a .277/.371/.446 line to opposite-handed hitters, including four of the five homers he allowed.
The addition of a splitter was supposed to mitigate the circumstances where he couldn't simply work around a lefty. For instance, the eighth inning of this afternoon's tilt, in which Domínguez came into the game with the bases loaded and the White Sox clinging to a 7-4 lead.
Domínguez came into face righty William Contreras, and while he hung a sweeper over the middle of the plate, Contreras triggered the infield fly rule for the second out. But a lefty followed in Luis Rengifo, and after tangling into a full count, Rengifo spanked a challenge fastball through the middle to make it a 7-6 game.
A tougher opponent followed, because Pat Murphy called for lefty Christian Yelich to replace righty Gary Sánchez. Domínguez fell behind 2-1 on a splitter off the plate, but evened the count with a fastball that was fouled off. On 2-2, Domínguez went back to the splitter, and this was the result:
Yelich's three-run bomb capped off a six-run eighth that made the White Sox's first successful offensive performance of the season an accelerant to humiliation.
"I just tried to go down and away and pulled it a little bit," Domínguez said postgame. "I feel really bad because I threw the game away today and the guys made a really good effort today. They came in and hit, scored runs, and I feel terrible for that."
The thing is, though the White Sox led 4-0 after four batters thanks to a Colson Montgomery grand slam and eventually stretched out the margin to 7-2, the lead never felt safe. Anthony Kay gave up a two-run homer to Sanchez in the bottom of the first that wiped out half the cushion Montgomery's slam provided, marking the start of an arduous afternoon for White Sox pitchers, who only faced the minimum in the third inning.
"Teams that put the ball in play, it's going to be tough, it's the walks that we've really got to do a better job of," Will Venable said. "They put the ball in play, put pressure on the defense. That [Brandon] Lockridge single there in the eighth was just a great example of what they do, and they just continue to put good at-bats on you and make it tough for you. So, yeah, you've just got to do everything you can to execute. Get beat in the zone, so be it."
Every other frame required labor. Kay was pulled one out short of the fifth inning after throwing 92 pitches, and while Jordan Leasure was able to strand two runners thanks to Edgar Quero's clutch challenge on 0-2 backup slider that clipped the inside corner, he couldn't strand Sal Frelick's leadoff double in the sixth, which made it a 7-3 game.
Grant Taylor was able to record a scoreless seventh, but not without drama. He walked Rengifo with two outs, and then saw an outstanding ranging play by Montgomery negated by a challenge because Munetaka Murakami's foot came off the bag while making a great scoop on an in-between hop. Taylor had to face Frelick, alternating balls and strikes before getting the undersized lefty to swing under a high fastball for the strikeout.
That consumed six more pitches, though, and while Will Venable might not have taxed Taylor beyond 18 pitches on back-to-back days, he had no choice but to open the eighth with a lesser option in Chris Murphy, who ended up retiring just one of the five batters he faced to set up Domínguez for completing the collapse.
That's how the White Sox will end up slinking to Miami despite a five-RBI day from Montgomery and two other homers. Murakami followed a Chase Meidroth double play with his third homer in as many games to put the White Sox up 5-2 in the second inning, and the Sox even tagged Brandon Sproat for another run when Miguel Vargas singled, stole second and scored on Montgomery's single through the middle.
"We had a good gameplan with [Sproat]," said Montgomery. "We were trying to keep him in the zone. If we kept him in the zone, we were able to do some damage with him. They weren’t really trying to do too much. Really wasn’t throwing anything over the plate for anybody. We were taking our walks."
One inning later, Everson Pereira clubbed an elevated sweeper out to center for his first homer in a White Sox uniform, which maxed out the Chicago margin for the afternoon.
Once Sproat left the game, opportunities were harder to come by. Not only did Grant Anderson, Jared Koenig, Jake Woodford and Trevor Megill pitch six scoreless innings between them, but they didn't even allow a White Sox to reach scoring position after the fourth. The lines tell the story:
- Sproat: 3 IP, 6 H, 7 R, 7 ER, 4 BB, 3 K, 3 HR
- Bullpen: 6 IP, 3 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 1 BB, 9 K, 0 HR
"Obviously it’s very disappointing and it’s really hard for the team itself to lose a game like that," Murakami said via interpreter. "But we have a lot to go in the future, so you just have to reset and go to Miami with the same mindset and play hard there."
Bullet points:
*The White Sox went 3-for-4 with runners in scoring position. The Brewers were 6-for-20, so the denominator was the difference.
*Kay's White Sox debut: 4.2 IP, 3 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 4 BB, 5 K, 1 HR.
"It was awesome," Kay said of pitching in the majors for the first time since 2023. "Definitely got a little emotional walking out to the bullpen before the game. Definitely was a little amped up and had to hone that in a little bit."
*The Sox and Brewers each stole just one base, so Kay's left-handedness might've helped there.
*The Brewers outscored the White Sox 29-10 for the weekend. The White Sox will now head to Miami to face the Marlins, who came back in the ninth inning to sweep the Rockies.
