CHICAGO — It was delayed by 45 minutes of rain, but Tuesday was ’90s Night at Guaranteed Rate Field.
The following are the details: White SoxHosting the AL Central champions for five years, the White Sox’s 1993 division-winning team was able to ensure that they never went on to another postseason. The team was subsequently dropped a must-win showdown10-7 in 11 innings for a must-sweep series versus a GuardiansWhite Sox team was primed for disruption of their long-awaited competitive windows. The White Sox achieved the worst possible synergy among promotion and product.
The Sox voted for their Cy Young candidate. Dylan Cease. They took the hit late, tying hits with middle-of-the order stalwarts Eloy JiménezThe seventh José AbreuTo move a slider from All-Star closer, click here Emmanuel ClaseTwo-out RBI single in the tenth. Their best performance of the year was displayed for most of the night. Their Ohio division rivals still crushed their dreams in front their home fans. They won the series and showed why the standings are where they are.
The White Sox would be better off statistically looking at the wild-card standings where they are 5 1/2 games behind. Mariners. The loss placed the Sox five back of the Guardians in the division standings with only 14 games left to play, but it’s effectively six given Cleveland’s possession of the tiebreaker. It’s impossible to say they haven’t earned it.
“I should have made better moves,” acting manager Miguel Cairo said, speaking after his club unraveled to allow seven runs in two extra innings. “We lost, so that’s on me. Our players fought hard and did their job. I didn’t do my job.”
Cairo’s late-night dive onto his sword strains credulity for multiple reasons.
One, he declined further explanations. There was no reveal of whether he was more haunted by not intentionally walking José Ramírez when first base was not open in the seventh (burned for a game-tying RBI infield single) or that Josh Naylor burned him for an RBI single that set up Ramírez on a sacrifice fly, when Cairo did intentionally walk Ramírez with first base open in the 10th. Cairo was left with five innings to provide relief, after Cease had spun six innings. Every trusted reliever was called upon to help the game. There was no time for always steady. Jimmy LambertHe walked the two first hitters he encountered (both of whom scored in the seventh to erase a 3-1 deficit), and the five runs against. Jake DiekmanThe Guardians’ wild behavior on the base paths of the 11th justified the use of every other battle-tested option. José Ruiz and Tanner Banks were used heavily in Sunday’s blowout win in a leverage environment more familiar to their work.
“It was execution on our end, for sure,” said AJ PollockHe also listed his own mistakes in the area of a Steven KwanThey became a triplet among them. “Miggy, I thought he did a good job of getting the guys out there and putting guys in the right spots. We just didn’t win.”
“I feel like we were ready,” said Cease, before floating an even more dubious theory of why he was actually at fault. “I think if anything me not being efficient, if I’m efficient maybe I go seven or eight (innings) and save some arms. I would say that’s as big of a reason as why we lost as anything.”
Cairo can’t convince anyone that he is the acting manager. A lineup full of power hitters, who’ve wasted their strength into the ground all year, could not get more than a Pollock single out of the infield for the first four innings against the Guardians’ Aaron CivaleIn his first appearance after nearly a month on the disabled list. Two-out double Elvis Andrus in the seventh was the first extra-base hit for the White Sox, and there wouldn’t be a second until they were down five runs and playing in front of emptied-out stands in the 11th.
Elvis Andrus chases Cleveland:
“They have been playing perfectly up until now. We know that if we continue winning series, they will eventually crumble. Tomorrow will be a good game for us to get out there and make a statement.
— James Fegan (@JRFegan) September 14, 2022
A pitching staff built on blowing the opposition away was flummoxed once more by the Guardians’ high-contact lineup, which drew seven walks over just five strikeouts across 49 plate appearances. After nine innings of doing their best to rise to the Guardians’ level of fundamental precision, highlighted by a pair of showstopping plays from veteran Josh HarrisonAt the second base Yoán MoncadaTo catch the pop-up, the Sox defense collapsed for three stolen bases. Seby ZavalaMoncada, third, offered unconvincingly throwing error in the 11th.
“They’re a smooth team,” Pollock said of the Guardians. “They really haven’t made huge mistakes the whole year. You get some pitching, and it’s a good team. I think we fought hard, some mistakes, but it’s not like we came out flat. Guys were ready to play today and we just lost.”
Despite superior experience that was supposed to carry the day in the end, it was the Sox whose execution level “crumbled” under the Guardians’ constant pressure as their most important game of the year entered its fourth hour. Then-White Sox starter Dallas Keuchel openly lamented the Guardians’ lack of spending in spring training, but a young lineup full of hitters who have yet to enjoy the fruits of salary arbitration put the most expensive Sox roster in team history in danger of going home after the Oct. 5 regular-season finale. The Guardians scored big on a Sox bullpen which was the primary source for front-office investment during free agency and at trade deadlines the past two years.
Cairo, if anything, has coaxed the best baseball all season out of this White Sox group, whose players would readily admit they’ve played their way into a hole in the standings. Still offered the opportunity to show their superiority over a Guardians team that was supposed to be just setting the stage for a loaded farm system, this Sox team that was believed to be strong enough to overcome anticipated strangeness from the manager’s chair lost decisively on its own.
“Terry Francona and their staff has done a good job with a young group of guys they’re teaching the game of baseball to, and they play a good brand of baseball,” said Kendall Graveman, who allowed Naylor’s go-ahead single in the 10th. “They’ve played good all year. They’ve surprised a lot people because a lot of people didn’t pick them, and they have that chip on our shoulder.”
In keeping with the night’s theme, the Guaranteed Rate Field scoreboard rattled off Alex Fernandez and Jack McDowell facts throughout the night. A quick Baseball-Reference search to confirm if those two rotation mainstays from the ’90s posted numbers as steady as their reputations revealed a disquieting detail. Their White Sox postseason records were almost identical. Both Fernandez and McDowell went 0-2, making two starts each in the team’s 1993 ALCS defeat to the Blue Jays in six games. Their next playoff chances came at different times in their careers.
After being chased in the second innings of his playoff debut last Oct. To improve, he must stop trying to be betterYou will be able to pitch again with the season at stake. His season has been largely a fulfillment his goals. On Wednesday, he will have the highest ERA among all starting pitchers with over 170 innings pitched. The night before, he took the ball in his team’s most important game because he has built himself into the pitcher to do it. He struggled with poor early fastball command but he worked through multiple jams to finish the sixth inning. It wasn’t pretty, but it should have been enough.
“The external situations are going to be what they are,” said Cease, still resolute. “We just have to focus on what we can do.”
It’s not clear how much there is left to focus on.
(Photo by Josh Harrison, after he caught a fifth inning fly ball: Matt Marton/USA Today)
