White Sox find new way to lose; water still wet

You still have to hand it to the White Sox (58-99). They are 157 games into the season and still finding unique, implausible ways to lose games. After Colson Montgomery mashed home run number 19 to take a one-run lead, the bullpen nearly completed the game by taking the lead through two outs in the ninth, bringing the Yankees (89-68) within one strike of a loss. Any other team probably would have gotten out of the inning and won the game, but not our team! The bullpen completely collapsed, and within two batters, New York went from potentially losing to one of the worst teams in baseball to clinching a 2025 postseason berth with a 3-2 win.

Overall, Shane Smith worked through the Yankees’ lineup really well, and through the first two innings, he had struck out five batters, but he was still walking too many. In more positive news, his fastball was cooking Tuesday, and all three outs Smith recorded in the first were via strikeouts. However, he alternated striking someone out and putting a baserunner on: strikeout, walk, strikeout, base hit, strikeout — whew.

The second frame wasn’t as kind to him, but the same alternating trend continued for a few more batters. Given all of the action and scoring opportunities for New York, Smith faired pretty well, and just one run ended up scoring for the Yankees, 1-0. Shane had walked Jazz Chisolm Jr. to lead off the inning, who then promptly stole second base to get into scoring position. Smith recorded his fourth strikeout before Anthony Volpe singled to put runners on the corners, and that’s when Austin Wells doubled to score Chisolm. The fifth K was picked up on the next batter, and Smith was rightfully frustrated when Will Venable called to intentionally walk Judge to load the bases for Cody Bellinger. Smith persevered and forced a fly out to end the inning and limit the damage to keep the Sox competitive.

Smith was at least able to rebound in the third, and although Chisolm drove a base hit out to right, he rung up his sixth batter of the night by striking out Giancarlo Stanton and got out of the inning no problem. It seemed that he started to settle in, and Smith kept dealing into the fourth. He nearly had a clean inning outside of Trent Grisham walking with two outs, and Brooks Baldwin even made a nice diving play in right center to make the second out of the inning and rob a gapper from Wells. Tasked with Judge once again, Smith fell behind on a 3-0 count, but Judge had the green light, and luckily for the Good Guys, he just missed and flew out to end the inning.

While the Yankees put up four hits through the first four frames, the White Sox weren’t having the same success at the plate and only recorded one singular hit: a Lenyn Sosa single through the right side in the top of the second. The Good Guys had just two other baserunners through five innings, both from Kyle Teel, with a walk in the second and third. On his second walk, Teel had moved into scoring position with two outs after Luis Gil made a bad throw on a pickoff attempt, but Montgomery wasn’t able to get it done … this time. Unlike Smith, Gil only had two Ks through five compared to Smith’s seven; the South Siders just couldn’t seem to string any hits together.

Smith was just as commanding in the fifth and struck out two more Yankees to tie his career high of eight punchouts. He tossed 93 pitches in his outing and allowed just five hits, and though his walk-to-strikeout ratio wasn’t ideal, he powered through and limited New York to just one run and forced them to leave seven on base.

Gil was back out for the sixth for the Bronx Bombers, and finally the White Sox were able to put some hits — and some runs — on the board. Reaching base for his third time of the night, Teel snagged a free base hit from miscommunication between Grisham and Judge, but we will always take base runners however we get them. ESPECIALLY when Montgomery is coming up to bat, and he goes ahead and blasts a 428-foot bomb into the upper deck to take a 2-1 lead.

The South Side bullpen was looking just as solid as Smith did, and Tyler Gilbert was nails in his place in the sixth, and Jordan Leasure also led a hitless inning in the seventh. Gilbert got beat by Chisolm, who reached base for the third time of the night. Shortly after, Chisolm was caught attempting to steal second as Gilbert had him picked off at first, leading to Jazz getting caught in a rundown for the second out. Gilbert was able to cash in his second strikeout of the inning on the very next pitch, getting Volpe to chase on a high fastball and hold the one-run lead.

Leasure was just as smooth into the bottom of the seventh. He struck out Wells, walked Grisham, but forced the reigning AL MVP to ground into a double play and get out of the inning with no harm done. In an attempt to pick up where Leasure left off, Grant Taylor was in to man the eighth. The Yankees threatened after Jazz reached again for his fourth time in the game, creating a mini two-out rally, but Taylor locked in and struck Amed Rosario out to hold the lead into the ninth.

The Good Guys only put up two more hits after that: a single from Miguel Vargas in the eighth, and Baldwin led off the ninth with a double, but naturally, they couldn’t bring anyone else around to score. Overall, the South Side offense went 0-for-4 with runners in scoring position and left seven on base as a team. Up until that point, the pitching was still carrying the team, but as a friendly reminder to all, no White Sox lead is safe.

Vibes in the ninth seemed to be high for the White Sox going into the inning, especially after strong performances from the defense and pitching staff. Brandon Eisert was tasked with the final three outs for the save, and he was quite literally one strike away from ending the game before shit hit the fan. Volpe and Wells led off the frame with back-to-back base hits, but Eisert rolled that off his back and got Grisham to ground into a double play, leaving Volpe on third with two gone. Once again, Judge was intentionally walked, leaving the tying run on third for Bellinger, and the winning run on first. Eisert battled Bellinger to a full count and was one strike away from getting out of it, but he completely airmailed a fastball to the backstop that allowed the tying run to score easily, 2-2.

Venable had seen enough from Eisert and turned to the bullpen one final time, hoping that Steven Wilson would be able to stop the madness and force extra innings. José Caballero and Wilson went head-to-head in a nine-pitch at-bat that ended with Caballero blooping a base hit in short center, falling in front of Michael A. Taylor, who was unable to make the play at home, handing New York a 3-2 win. For whatever reason, Taylor made no attempt to dive for the ball, which would have been an excellent play, but what other options are there? Either Taylor pulls off the catch to force a 10th, or the Yankees win anyway, but I digress.

It was an exciting game all the way through, but Smith certainly didn’t deserve that ending after a solid performance on the mount. New York clinched a postseason berth on that silly game-ending play, while the White Sox clinched their 99th loss: the duality of baseball teams. With five more games to go, Chicago would have to win out to avoid yet another 100-loss season, which, if you watched tonight’s game or just read about it in this article, you understand how unlikely that is. Game two is set for the same time and place, on Wednesday, but hopefully it will end in a less demoralizing fashion. Though how much more sad can it really get if we’re already praying for 99 losses instead of 100?