You could call it a brand new season, but the White Sox might like the one they have right now.
With a second consecutive 6-5 victory over the Royals at Rate Field and a fourth straight win overall, the White Sox reached .500 beyond the four-game mark of a season for the first time since Game 162 of 2022. They've also secured their sixth series win out of their last eight, with a chance for the sweep Thursday night.
Just like Tuesday night, tonight could've been easier, as the White Sox once again blew a three-run lead in fairly short order. Noah Schultz went nine-up-nine-down on 41 pitches the first time through the order, but the fourth opened with Schultz walking the bases loaded, and while he almost got out the inning with minimal damage, his actual fate was closer to what walking the bases loaded deserves. Schultz struck out Salvador Perez and traded a run for an out with a Nick Loftin sac fly, but although Vinnie Pasquantino could only muscle a fly ball into left field, it was shallow enough to require an all-out dive from Sam Antonacci, and the ball rattled out of his glove for a three-run single, with Lane Thomas running all the way from first.
Just like that, a 3-0 lead disappeared, and Schultz only lasted two batters into the fifth before Will Venable pulled the plug after Schultz's fifth free pass. Tyler Davis entered and worked around an additional walk of his own before slipping out of the inning unscathed, and that left him in position for his first career win.
Jarred Kelenic saw to it. He came to the plate with two on and two out after Seth Lugo pitched around Andrew Benintendi with a runner on second, and when Lugo started him off with a lazy 74 mph curveball, Kelenic dropped the barrel on it and rifled a line drive that one-hopped the wall for a two-run double that gave the Sox a 5-3 lead, and made it easy to look past Kelenic getting cut down at third trying to advance on a throw home after a stop.
That extra run might have mattered had Colson Montgomery not blistered a center-cut John Schreiber cutter into the Miller Lite Landing, because Seranthony Domínguez gave up a two-run blast to Bobby Witt Jr. with two outs in the ninth that gave Kansas City its fourth and fifth runs. Then again, perhaps Domínguez was just padding the White Sox's record in one-run games. They went 15-36 in such games last year, but they're 8-5 thus far in 2026.
Lugo ended up taking his third loss of the season, and his second to the White Sox, who pestered him all evening. They stranded two in the first inning, but they had baserunners to spare. In the second, Kelenic reached on a one-out single, then scored all the way from first on Tristan Peters' double into the right field corner, with his hand touching the plate before a strong relay throw reached him. Drew Romo then followed with a tapper to first, which was good enough to get the run home on its own, but with the benefit of Romo reaching first because Pasquantino let it ramp up his glove.
An inning later, Miguel Vargas led off with a walk, moved to third on Montgomery's single, then scored on a Chase Meidroth sac fly for the aforementioned 3-0 lead.
Bullet points:
*Schultz's final line: 4.1 IP, 2 H, 3 R, 3 ER, 5 BB, 3 K. He's walked 21 batters over 29⅓ innings, which is a problem.
*Before Domínguez, Davis, Jordan Hicks and Sean Newcomb had combined for 3⅔ scoreless innings. Hicks, pitching for the first time in a week and only the third time this month, started the seventh with an HBP and a single that put runners on the corners and turned over the lineup, but then he struck out Maikel García, Witt and Lane Thomas to Houdini his way out of his own mess.
*Antonacci had his most Antonacci performance to date. Besides the diving catch attempt he couldn't quite close, he stretched a single into a double when he had no business doing so, reached on an error on what should've been a 4-3 and easily made second, took a fastball to the thigh for his eighth HBP of the year, and then got picked off trying to get a huge jump off Alex Lange with Munetaka Murakami at the plate. Murakami just missed going deep afterward.
*Meidroth made a nifty over-the-shoulder catch on a Pasquantino pop-up to shallow right field to end the secon, which is maybe he tried the other direction in the fourth.
