Happy trails, Hawk

The Chicago Cubs jumped all over Carlos Rodón, scoring five and knocking him out of the box before the third inning was over.

From there, the northsiders cruised to a win behind Kyle Hendricks, as the Chicago White Sox turned the “playoff atmosphere” of a crosstown series conclusion into a getaway sprint through the game.

A disappointing final game of Hawk Harrelson’s career, to say the least.

At midgame, Welington Castillo was the only South Sider with a hit, and he had two, a double and a single. It was his one-out double down the left-field line, chased one out later by a ground-rule shot down the right-field line from Tim Anderson, that provided the only run of the game for the Good Guys. Anderson added a single later on, topping off the White Sox’s total hits at four.

Rodón, on the other hand, earned every bit of his 15 game score, in his worst outing of the year. Velocity and command were down ... and contact was up. The Cubs were 9-for-17 against the southpaw today, and, channeling Hawk, you’re not going to win many games with the opposition hitting .529 against you.

If there was a bright spot in the game, it was solid relief work. Aaron Bummer and Ryan Burr started things off with 3 ²⁄₃ innings of two-hit, two-walk, three-K ball. In the seventh, Jeanmar Gómez wormed his way out of a one-out, bases-loaded jam of his own making (a single and two walks), punching out Daniel Murphy and coaxing a sharply-slapped ground out from Ben Zobrist. Even Thyago Vieira kept wraps on the Cubs for Hawk, keeping it exciting with three hits over the final two innings, but two Ks kept his outing scoreless, too.

And that’s about it, Sox fans. Sorry, Hawk, you shoulda gone out with a bang.

The White Sox lose the series and are again 33 games below .500, one short of their season low. Next up is a final series against AL Central Champs Cleveland, who have won 12 of 16 vs. Chicago in 2018.