If, like Colson Montgomery suggests as a way to hype himself up, we are treat this slate of White Sox games against the best of the American League like they are playoff series, this would be one of those postseason matchups where a small sample of games still lent themselves to a definitive statement
Even without the added challenge of facing Aaron Judge, or recently, Cody Bellinger, the Yankees have outscored the White Sox by a score of 35-19 while taking four of five contests. Were these the playoffs, Wednesday and Thursday's games would be cleared off the schedule.
At least the White Sox can't be accused of going out silently. Despite relievers Angel Chivilli and Brett Headrick getting through the seventh and eighth on 13 combined pitches, the Sox found way to trouble Yankees closer David Bednar. Braden Montgomery's one-out single didn't seem like a major breakthrough, but Chase Meidroth golfing a splitter in on his hands out to left dragged the Sox within a run with two outs in the ninth. That added some real juice to a keyed-up Everson Pereira pinch-hit appearance, which included a long foul down the right field line before he waved at a splitter to end an eight-pitch battle.
"Sometimes the execution isn't what we know it can be with this group," said Braden Montgomery. "We're upset about losing and the results, but then it's also all right, how are you going to learn from that? You've got to remove the emotion from it, look at the result, look at how it came about and learn about how you're going to use that going forward, because these aren't the most important games that we'll play. While every game is important, there's more important stuff down the road."
For his sake, hopefully Anthony Kay isn't regularly comparing himself to Gerrit Cole. But he generated just as many whiffs (14) as the former Cy Young Award winner, walked fewer guys (1 to 2), and was only a tick behind on average velocity (96.1 to 97.2) for the night, yet he departed in the sixth while staked to a 3-0 deficit that would ultimately hold up.
"Other than that second inning, it was probably the best command I had all year," said Kay, who also matched Cole with seven strikeouts. "I feel like we’re really close to finding something here and having it really click. If we can find a way to escape that 30-pitch inning then we’ll really start cruising."
Most of the problem lay in tightly clustering his worst work of the night together. Jasson Domínguez, Trent Grisham and Anthony Volpe opened the second with three-straight sharply-struck hits to open the scoring. Only the low-and-in 1-0 sinker to Grisham deserved a better fate, and even then not really, since the first pitch was also a sinker aimed at the same quadrant.
Tristan Peters almost made a leaping catch at the wall on Volpe's RBI double, but by the same token, it was almost a three-run bomb. Such that when the two runners were later cashed in by Max Scheumann chasing a letter-high cutter and chopping it over Miguel Vargas' head for a fluky double on a drawn-in infield, the bad luck seemed almost corrective.
"You don’t want them to score anymore," said Will Venable. "That’s the play for us. We’ve been aggressive with it all year. When it doesn’t work out, I stand up here and explain why. But it’s something we’ve done all year and the right time to do it. But it’s one of those moves that doesn’t work out."
Except Cole's vulnerable period was just as tightly clustered in a 32-pitch fourth inning that traversed through the heart of the order, saw him issue both his walks on the night, load the bases and face all three White Sox All-Star hitters and emerged unscathed.
Munetaka Murakami waited out a 3-1 fastball and ripped a leadoff double with the hardest contact the Sox managed on Cole all night, and was followed by a Vargas walk. But Colson Montgomery flew out to shallow right on a belt-high heater, Andrew Benintendi squibbed a grooved 2-0 slider for a groundout, and after Braden Montgomery walked to load the bases, Peters popped out on 99 mph in an inviting location, which accounts for the 0-for-3 with runners in scoring position against Cole.
Despite Meidroth's late-game heroics, that missed opportunity would ultimately prove to be the difference.
Bullet points:
*Peters is 4-for-36 with a double since the All-Star break.
*Sox hitters have homered eight times in 11 games since the All-Star break. Five of them came on Sunday, which were the first since the Toronto series.
*Cole wound up catching a Colson Montgomery popup himself in the second, amid a crowd of confused Yankee infielders that allowed it to happen. The ball squirted out of his glove as he staggered back onto the mound, but the former Cy Young winner secured it with his bare hand.
*Murakami snagged an Austin Wells lineout in the second, snared a Ben Rice grounder to start what could have been a 3-6-1 double play in the fifth, and did indeed start a 3-6 inning-ending double play in the eighth. So at least now everyone has a glimpse of what "Murakami looks good on an underwhelming Sox team" would have looked like in practice.
Murakami's performance is more commendable since he was awoken shortly after midnight with word of a deadly 7.1 earthquake in his hometown of Kumamoto in Japan. He's verified that his family and friends are fine, and that his parents' home was not damaged, but the news was nevertheless jarring.
"It does really affect me, I’ll try to keep doing what I can," Murakami said via interpreter. "I was really surprised and devastated by the news. The last earthquake I experienced was 10 years back. Obviously it’s really hard to swallow."
Murakami has donated to relief efforts from the prior Kumamoto earthquake 10 years back, and is planning to contribute more to the recovery from this one as information becomes available.
*Jazz Chisholm Jr. dove into the outfield grass to rob Sam Antonacci of a hit in the first, and ranged deeper into the green territory to rob Colson Montgomery of a hit after a two-out Vargas single to end the eighth.
