If you told the White Sox that after being shut out for two consecutive games that their pitching plan for the series finale would be busted when their bulk boy walked all three batters he faced before departing with an injury, they'd probably wonder which position player closed out another series loss at Kauffman Stadium.
"It was not necessarily how you drew it up," said Will Venable.
Instead, despite using nine pitchers over nine innings for just the second time in franchise history, and two of their better options to cover the first 2⅓, the ending did actually look like how Venable might draw it up: with a rested Seranthony Domínguez facing the top of the Kansas City lineup.
Domínguez issued a careful walk to Bobby Witt Jr. with two outs, but otherwise handled the inning without incident, and so the White Sox leave Kansas City with a split that feels like a win.
"It’s good to get these tough kind of close games that takes the whole team to win out of the way early, to get to really feel how it’s going to be later on in the season as well," said Tanner Murray.
A position player sort of closed it out in a different way, and that was Dustin Harris. He led off the top of the seventh with a double off John Schreiber, then came around to score on a wild pitch that put the White Sox ahead 6-5. An inning later, he made a leaping catch at Kauffman's shorter, closer right field wall to rob Classy Michael Massey of extra bases, if not a homer, depending on whether it would have clipped the top of the wall.
That spared Lucas Sims a blown save, and he went on to retire Kansas City's 6-7-8 hitters in order to line up Domínguez for the larger challenges in the ninth.
Order was difficult to find for both teams for the bulk of the game. The White Sox upended an unfavorable pitching matchup by hitting Noah Cameron pretty hard, with Colson Montgomery at the center of it. He doubled with two outs to keep the second inning alive, and Murray brought him home by getting enough of a hanging 0-2 changeup and back-spinning it over the left field wall. It barely registered as a hard-hit ball at 95.4 mph, but it counted as his first career homer just the same for a 2-0 lead and his second keepsake item of the weekend landed in the Sox bullpen
Grant Taylor was able to keep it that way through two, but instead of going straight to Jonathan Cannon, Venable chose Sean Newcomb for the platoon advantage against a lefty-heavy bottom of the order. Newcomb started with a groundout, but Isaac Collins singled through the left side, and when Newcomb walked Kyle Isbel to turn over the lineup to Maikel García, that's when things started to fall apart.
Jonathan Cannon entered with two on, one out and the Sox leading 2-0. He departed with a trainer and the game tied at 2 after walking all three batters he faced on a total of 14 pitches. The White Sox called it right hip irritation, and Brandon Eisert got all the time in the world to warm up for the bases loaded and still just one out.
"I think it was bothering him the whole time, a couple pitches in," Venable said of Cannon. "We kind of looked at it as time and a half through the order we were hoping. We had some availability there so we knew we didn't have to push him multiple times through the order...it ended up being shorter than that, obviously and we had to pivot and guys stepped up."
Eisert fared fairly well, striking out Salvador Perez and getting Carter Jensen to hit a spinner off the end of the bat. Unfortunately, it served the same purpose as a perfect bunt against an infield that had no reason to expect one, and it drove in a run to put the Royals ahead 3-2.
Montgomery had another answer against Cameron. He came to the plate with Sosa on first with two outs, and when Cameron tried getting ahead with a first-pitch slider, Montgomery put the Sox ahead with two-run blast inside the right-field foul pole for a 4-3 lead.
"I felt like it was close," Montgomery said of his big day. "I always tell myself I’m one swing away, one at-bat away, one game away. I feel like that keeps me going in a good positive mindset and kind of ready for the next pitch and the next at-bat or whatever and not really worried about the past or whatever happened the day before."
Eisert started the fourth, but he didn't finish it. He gave up a leadoff double to Jac Caglianone, who then scored on Collins' single that knotted the game at 4. After a sac bunt by Isbel turned over the lineup, Jordan Hicks entered and retired García on a groundout, but not Witt, who singled to center to regain the lead for Kansas City.
But Witt ran into an out when he took off for second on what appeared to be a balk. Hicks raised his hands after coming to a set, and while Witt and the entire Kansas City dugout screamed for a balk, home plate umpire NIck Mahrley didn't grant one, and Witt couldn't generate enough confusion for an off-target throw to second after Hicks stepped off.
That TOOTBLAN settled the game on the White Sox's side, and further kindness on the side of Kansas City pitchers gave them back their lead. Cameron and Nick Mears combined to walk three White Sox over the course of six batters in the sixth, with Andrew Benintendi's bases-loaded pass making it a 5-5 game. An inning later, Schreiber's wildness sealed the deal.
On the other side, Venable still had to make a lot of mid-inning pitching changes, but the patchwork effort held together. Bryan Hudson relieved Hicks and got the last out of the fifth, and Jordan Leasure took over for Hudson for the last out of the sixth. He then pitched the entire seventh, bouncing back from a leadoff walk to Witt with three consecutive flyouts to Luisangel Acuña in center. The final five pitchers used had no runs on their tab, and an off day on Monday is their reward.
Bullet points:
*Sean Burke made himself available to pitch in extra innings, had it been necessary, underscoring the all-hands-on-deck spirit of the evening.
"I was with the training staff and he runs in, putting on a jersey and I thought he was going to go run the bases if something happened," said Taylor. "But no, he's heading out the bullpen. Thankfully we didn't have to use him, but that would have been definitely a sight to see."
*The only other time the White Sox used nine pitchers in nine innings was Sept. 14, 1997, which was an 8-3 loss to Cleveland. This is the first time they've done it in a win.
*Somehow, that 1997 game started with Jaime Navarro throwing 6⅓ scoreless innings. Eight White Sox relievers in an expanded September bullpen accounted for this line: 2.2 IP, 9 H, 8 R, 8 ER, 4 BB, 7 K, 1 HR
*Acuña recorded five putouts in center, which is only worth noting because he completed the last one with the positioning card between his teeth.
*Montgomery took a pitch off his left wrist in his final plate appearance.
"It’s sore, but not broke so that’s good," he said.
*Both teams broke out of their droughts with runners in scoring position. The Royals were 3-for-10, the White Sox 1-for-7.
*Maybe the Cannon injury couldn't have been anticipated, but it still seemed too cute for Venable to use both Taylor and Newcomb before knowing what even a fully functioning Cannon had to offer major league hitters in 2026.
