Another embarrassing Bummer

Happy Monday, White Sox fans, and Happy Wasted Dylan Cease Day. Chances are that you drifted off to dreamland shortly after the seemingly random 8:38 p.m. CST start, in which case I’m here to help you fill in those sleepy gaps. I hope you had some lovely White Sox lucid dreams, untouched by the painful low-scoring loss.

If you’re one of the lucky ones who got a good night’s rest and missed this dreadful game, then it’s Tuesday for you, and you’ve awoken to the weather condition of “smoke,” which has not traveled back to Chicago from Luis Robert Jr.’s bat, but instead, from the hot heads of the clubhouse after Aaron Bummer completely ruined Cease’s outstanding performance with two wild pitches.

The Angels, fresh off an absurdly high-scoring weekend in Colorado, where they stole big boy slugger Mike Moustakas from the Rockies and scored 25 runs in a game in one fell swoop, continued the robbery in Anaheim. Cool-headed Ace Dylan Cease brought his best four-seam action to the West Coast tonight in vain, riding a low pitch count until his departure in the seventh inning, and surpassing the nine K’s from his last start with 10 punch-outs. White Sox pitching has been serving up serious fire, with no offense in sight to support a franchise record-tying nine straight games with at least 10 strikeouts.

Aaron Bummer, eternal shitwagon, can be excluded from that classification.

To add insult to injury, young Angels lefty Reid Detmers should have been an easy starter for the White Sox offense to dominate, but bats went limper than Frank Thomas without his Eugenix. Luis Robert Jr.’s first inning solo homer was the only run scored for the White Sox.

Shohei Ohtani swiftly answered Robert Jr.’s solo homer with his own, and the score remained deadlocked at 1-1 until the ninth inning. With Trout at first, assface reliever Bummer walked Ohtani, who later stole second, and after two wild pitches, the Angels had a walk-off win on the second wild pitch in a row thrown by Bummer.

Before last weekend’s series victory against the Red Sox, the White Sox hadn’t won a series since June 8 at Yankee Stadium. It seems that every time the South Siders generate momentum, the brakes squeal proceedings to a halt, and their place in the standings slides further down the ladder.

Even with their bleak .430 winning percentage, the White Sox have a chance to crest over the hill of the ailing AL Central if bats get hot. But let’s face it — that’s not happening. There’s nothing more annoying than watching AL Player of the Week Robert carry the entire White Sox team on his back, when there is a shamefully large amount of talent on the team.

That atmospheric smoke is starting to get to me.

I need not remind you that Tim Anderson hasn’t hit a home run yet this season. The three pinch hitters Grifol brought in during the eighth inning did nothing. Even creepily clean-shaven Jake Burger couldn’t come to Cease’s rescue.

You know when you’re a freshman in high school, and you’re put into a class with a senior who’s sporting a full beard, and you suddenly become aware of how young you appear to the older kids? It’s the opposite when I see Burger completely clean-shaven. I feel like he’s about to approach me shyly outside the liquor store, and ask me to buy some Mad Dog 20/20 for his parents-out-of-town party.

I know I’m not the only one who’s exhausted at the lack of bats this season, and I’m more exhausted from mentioning how exhausted I am from the lack of bats. Players have slumps. It’s normal to struggle, and even the best hitters have their moments of mediocrity, but this is ridiculous.

Look at the White Sox lineup. Look at those numbers in 2019 or 2020. How has this team fallen so far from grace?

It’s easy to appoint a scapegoat when things aren’t going right, but what’s the point at this juncture? These hitters blow, and it’s because they don’t care. Look at their faces in the dugout and tell me otherwise. Robert clearly cares. Maybe Eloy Jiménez cares, but he’s too afraid to get injured if he breathes wrong. Yasmani Grandal — zero fucks. Tim Anderson has fallen so hard into suck territory, it almost looks like he’s purposely shitting the bed to make a statement. The new guys have no offensive support, and with hitting being such a mental game, it is an enormous challenge to refocus the guys who do care.

I’m not going to mention how great the Angels lineup is, or how easy the remainder of the season is for the White Sox. I have written up so many unused notes and stats on this game, and it doesn’t matter, because I’m the most annoyed I’ve been all year, so I’m deleting them. I’ve been loathing Bummer for years, and tonight, it has hit a crescendo, so instead of stats and optimism, I’ll take that writing real estate and ask readers a question:

Enjoy your smoke, South Siders. I’ll be hate-watching Kopech vs. Ohtani tomorrow night, and I can’t promise I’ll be rooting for the Good Guys this time.