ReyLo dethroned

As was made all-too-evident by the one-man lynch mob in tonight’s gamethread, Reynaldo López had one of those games tonight, in an 8-6 Chicago White Sox loss to Kansas City.

López was brutal, surrendering four home runs in 4 ²⁄₃ innings to a decidedly awful Royals club. Six earned runs went on his tab, off of nine hits.

With the temperature topping out at 87 degrees at game time, wind gusting 14 mph out to left, for the second straight night it wasn’t an ideal night for pitchers. And yet Glenn frigging Sparkman managed to to escape with just three earned in five innings, some of his 76 pitches managing to not slip, as he deftly improved to 4-11 on the season.

And yet, the White Sox rallied in this game, to within 6-4 entering the eighth inning, on the strength of four Eloy Jiménez RBIs (three-run oppo taco in the first, ground out in the sixth. It was Carson Fulmer who put the finishing touches on the White Sox loss, after a two-out single and a first-pitch cutter that cut. Boy howdy, did it cut, right down the middle of the plate.

Ugh. I guess I’m glad our sites didn’t just publish an exhaustive article on not giving up on Fulmer (hell no, I’m not linking it). (Course, our sites also don’t retweet freaking barstool, so we’ve got that going for us, which is nice.)

The Fulmer BP slider was unfortunate, as it put K.C. up, 8-4. Why so unfortunate? Well, in the bottom of the eighth, with one out and one on, José Abreu just outright turned on a 95 mph, 1-2 inside fastball from Jesse Hahn:

Note Abreu’s quick spit upon contact. Not as flashy as STICK TALK or Yoán bat drop, but still sort of badass.

The White Sox continued to rally; with two outs, Jiménez singled and Welington Castillo walked. James McCann pinch-hitting for Zack Collins became a tale of how one pitch can change an at-bat:

That first pitch above? A called strike from home plate ump Dan Bellino.

How do you know the pitch was horsebleep and that Gameday isn’t lying here? McCann, who makes Ned Flanders seem like he plays bass for the Sex Pistols, was ejected from the game after his whiff, presumably for arguing balls and strikes with a few decidedly un-Christian (#*%s and _@(%s lobbed at Bellino.

In the ninth, it was three-up, three-down, for a White Sox loser. So let’s end on a happier note, eh Kamka?

The unenviable of trying to avoid a home series loss to the ... [checks notes] ... Royals falls to Lucas Giolito in tomorrow’s 1:10 p.m. getaway game. It’s a double-WGN game, as the White Sox shoot for their 65th win.