Red Sox 6, White Sox 1: Jose Rondón pitched

For a brief moment in the eighth inning, the White Sox almost made it interesting. They’d trailed 6-0, but they took advantage of Colton Brewer wildness to put two on with a walk, and James McCann knocked one of them home with a single to center to spoil the shutout.

Up came Yoan Moncada from his strong side, and with him the faintest gleam of a fourth straight walk-off. It vanished quickly, as Moncada hit a well-struck grounder, but right at Michael Chavis for an inning-ending 4-3 putout.

And then Rick Renteria threw in the towel by using Jose Rondón for the ninth.

This wasn’t Matt Davidson, who lent credibility to the practice of pitching position players with a low-90s fastball and three-pitch arsenal. This was more like a Will Ferrell charity stunt. Rondón lobbed pitches toward home, most of them measuring below radar gun speeds. The ones that Statcast could clock averaged 55.5 mph, with the slowest at 50.7, and the fastest at 59.

It should’ve gone worse than it did. Rondón actually threw a scoreless inning — flyout, softball single through the right side, walk. popout, and then a smoked line drive right at Moncada. The White Sox did not rally in the ninth.

Rondón’s appearance would have been a welcome respite from a double-digit drubbing, or a team-first move after a pitcher got knocked out in the second. Down by five runs in an ordinary loss with an eight-man bullpen, it was still somewhat amusing, but also highly anticompetitive, even for a White Sox team that’s n the middle of a third straight season tanking.

Before then, the White Sox just got outplayed. Reynaldo Lopez pitched better than his line for most of the night, but he also gave up a pair of obscenely long homers that should’ve counted for more than they five runs they scored.

His fastball-first approach backfired when he didn’t show the Red Sox he could locate a secondary pitch in the first inning. After retiring the first two batters of the game, J.D. Martinez and Xander Bogaerts singled, and then Rafael Devers teed off on a grooved 94 mph fastball and planted it into the shrubbery on the batter’s eye.

Later in the sixth, he rolled a slider to Michael Chavis, and Chavis nearly reached the concourse with a 459-foot blast over the White Sox bullpen.

In between? López held the Red Sox scoreless from the second through the fifth, so it wasn’t all bad. He just paid for more mistakes than Chris Sale made on the evening.

The White Sox were likely to get their asses kicked by Sale at some point over his career, and tonight was the night. He struck out 10 over six scoreless innigns while allowing six baserunners — a double, two singles, a walk and two hit batters. The Sox didn’t get their first hit until Yoan Moncada singled with two outs in the fourth, and even then, Sandy Leon cut him down trying to steal second to end the inning.

That risk backfired for the Sox. For one, Sale threw high and wide to Rondón, setting up what would’ve been a 3-1 count. Compounding matters, Rondón led off the fifth with a double off the right-field wall, and Welington Castillo took a slider on the side of the foot to give the White Sox their best threat.

But then Sale pantsed Ryan Cordell and Adam Engel on seven pitches combined, then used a high and wide zone to strike out Leury García to power his way out of the jam.

Sale’s effort gave him his first win of the season. He’s now 1-5 with a 5.25 ERA.

Bullet points:

*Renteria had only used Jose Ruiz, Josh Osich and Alex Colomé after López went five-plus. Ruiz walked in a run, but he also gave the Sox four outs.

*Engel took a Sale fastball on the tricep, then got some revenge by taking out Chavis with a clean slide at the pivot, forcing Chavis to lob his throw over the dugout.

Record: 14-16 | Box score | Highlights

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Yolmer

Meh. They got two chances at a split series and against Eduardo Rodriguez and Rick Porcello. I like those chances.

Trooper Galactus

A lot of us liked their chances agains the winless and much reduced Chris Sale too. 

Neat_on_the_rocks

Sale already looked a lot better his previous 2 starts leading in to this one. The Chris Sale we faced last night looked nothing like first 3 starts of the year Chris Sale.

Yolmer

He’s been close to old Chris Sale the last three starts including this one. Sometimes a great pitcher is just going to beat you.

soxfan

If that’s true we should get some of them. 

NateDPT12

Seeing position players pitch stopped being amusing in the Ventura era. 

joewho112

Have you guys done any analysis of why Yoan sucks at stealing bases? Someone with his speed should be racking up steals Willie May Hayes style

Trooper Galactus

Just a guess, but it might be lack of initial acceleration. Great top speed once underway, but he’s a big boy and it takes him a moment to get there.

Smclean09

He would have had that bag without a perfect throw as well.

Timmeh was pretty bad himself his first couple full seasons. It’s a skill he can develop

soxfan

With those two hits we can call the mcCann signing a good decision, right @Patrick Nolan?

Neat_on_the_rocks

The Whitesox had the double header a couple days ago, just lost Rodon, have Starting Pitching that can barely be relied upon to go even 5 innings, have a bullpen day scheduled for Sunday, and have only a single day off in all of May. Its worth mentionoing that Castillo and Engel were due up in the bottom of the 9th too…

Having Rondon pitch the 9th in a 5 run deficit didn’t really bother me with all that context.

What made the decision weird by contrast was pitching Colome in the 8th. I get that guys need work, but it still struck me as really weird to do that in a 5 run deficit and then trot out Rondon right after

35Shields

Can we agree after this game that announcer’s can’t talk about how Rick Renteria is developing a winning culture in the dugout anymore? He literally gave up in a five run ball game.

I’d say that I’m glad that this is the last year of his contract, but oh yeah we extended him for no reason.

ImmortalTimeTravelMan

Surprised nobody was ever able to dig up any dirt on that deal either.

soxfan

The managerial equivalent of not running out a ground ball. Hahn should sit him for a few games.