Quiet bats shut out by Yankees in nightcap

Well, that was fun while it lasted. The White Sox (28-36) saw their five-game winning streak snapped at the hands of the New York Yankees (37-27), splitting their doubleheader today but coming away winners of two out of three — never a bad result for a trip to the Bronx.

With a few exceptions, the fireworks were at a minimum from start to finish. The Yankees couldn’t muster much offense their first turn through the lineup, but the next was a different story. Oswaldo Cabrera appeared to have been thrown out at second base by Gavin Sheets to open the home half of the fourth inning, but the call was overturned to a double when it was ruled that Elvis Andrus obstructed the basepaths. One pitch later, Gleyber Torres sent a hanging cutter 402 feet into the night for a 2-0 Yankees lead.

The White Sox offense, meanwhile, was quieted by Randy Vásquez in just his second big-league start, putting two runners on in the first inning but failing to generate any offense against him thereafter. The 24-year-old rookie retired 15 consecutive batters at one point before Sheets broke the drought, but by that time, it was the top of the sixth inning, and the Yankees had already tacked on another run by way of a moonshot by journeyman Judge replacement Billy McKinney.

Baseball Savant

That was all the excitement we for the rest of the game. Ron Marinaccio did the Yankees bullpen a solid by working 2 1⁄3 innings in relief of Vásquez, sparing their bullpen a grind over the coming weekend. Aaron Bummer looked positively filthy in his 1 1⁄3 innings of work, flashing a form we haven’t seen much of since mid-2021. Even more promisingly, Garrett Crochet sat at a sizzling 98 mph in his clean inning of work, easily his highest velocity of the season.

The White Sox finally managed to put runners on base again in the eighth and ninth, but nothing came of it. Marinaccio soaking up those innings meant there was nobody left for the South Siders to face but closer Clay Holmes, who has been shaky at times and walked Luis Robert Jr. to lead off the inning. A little bit of hope might have been sparked by Torres airmailing a would-be double play ball, it was snuffed out by Eloy Jiménez pulling up limp as he hustled down the first-base line. He was replaced by Andrew Vaughn, and two batters later, the game was over.

With the season-high five game winning streak in the books, the White Sox are once again at a major crossroads as they return home for a three-game set with Miami. As early June turns into mid-June, and the weeks until the All-Star Break dwindle, this 3 1⁄2-game deficit to the Twins in the AL Central is the team’s chance to shed the on-field ugliness that characterized the first two months of this season. At this point, .500 doesn’t matter. The only route towards making this a salvageable season is by winning the AL Central, no matter how ugly it looks. If they can maintain momentum and win the next two series, the springboard to first place likely won’t be too far. Barring an unlikely streak of dominance from Minnesota, Cleveland, or Detroit, the White Sox can establish themselves in the thick of a legitimate playoff race, first two months be damned. If they can’t maintain momentum and once again drop back into that all-too-familiar territory of five, six, or seven games back, it’s hard to envision them making it any kind of race before some difficult decisions need to be made at the trade deadline.

Dylan Cease takes the hill tomorrow night for the Sox against 20-year-old phenom Eury Pérez, who’s dazzled in his first two big-league starts with the Marlins after entering the season as perhaps the top pitching prospect in baseball. First pitch is at 7:10 p.m. CT at Guaranteed Rate Field.