Sox end on a high note, 5-3

What a nice game on Sunday, as the White Sox wrapped the season with a 5-3 win over the Tigers to finish 2019 with a 72-89 record.

Tim Anderson finished 0-for-2 before getting pulled from the contest, but effectively clinched the major league batting title as soon as DJ LeMathieu made his first out in today’s Yankees game. Anderson finished with a .335 average, winning the MLB title by six points over Christian Yelich and Ketel Marte, the AL title by eight points over LeMathieu.

José Abreu was 1-for-1 in the game with a run scored, and got a similar strong ovation as the AL RBI leader (123, three off of Anthony Rendon’s MLB crown) in the sixth:

Abreu is just the second White Sox hitter ever to lead the AL in RBIs, after Dick Allen in 1972. He smacked his double after getting hit twice by pitches from Spencer Turnbull in his first two at-bats. (Perhaps I should say, 3-17 Spencer Turnbull ... yikes.)

But the big blow in the game came off the bat of an unlikely source, Welington Castillo, who has played this last month as if he cared about continuing his career somewhere in 2020 (it surely will not be on the South Side).

Castillo’s line shot to right made the score 5-2 White Sox, and while it wasn’t a game-winning blast, it was the exclamation point to place at the end of this 72nd win.

Ross Detwiler started the game and had a second straight solid performance, ensuring he’ll get a shot somewhere in 2020. The lefty went 5 ⅓ innings of five-hit, two-run ball, with three Ks against a walk.

Relievers Jimmy Cordero, Josh Osich, Evan Marshall, Aaron Bummer and Kelvin Herrera did well, with just Herrera’s ninth-inning homer (en route to his first save of the season) marring the record. This is not at all a bad assemblage of bullpen arms, looking ahead to 2020.

That about wraps 2019, South Side Sox. Thanks for hanging with us this season. We’ll be a little quiet in the offseason, as much of our content offloads to South Side Hit Pen. But we’ll be doing some year-end leaderboards here, as well as wrapping up our minors MVP series, and getting into some White Sox playoff Flashbacks, all in October.

But let’s end with one more poll, eh?