Cardinals 3, White Sox 0: Bullpen shines, while offense goes into hibernation

The White Sox drop game two to the Cardinals in typical South Side fashion. The pitching did everything it needed to do to keep a hot-hitting St. Louis team at bay, but once again the South Side offense fell completely flat, getting shut out at home, 3-0.

Touki Toussaint looked great on the mound during his 81-pitch, five inning outing, limiting the Cardinals to two earned runs on five hits, and striking out five. He was able to work his way out of a few jams, and only walked one today — much better control than some of his previous appearances. The Cardinals threatened in the first inning, but a flashy diving stop from Zach Remillard bailed the Sox out. It was a beauty.

Unfortunately for the South Siders, the Cards were able to strike first in the top of the second, as a pair of singles from Jordan Walker and Paul DeJong quickly put St. Louis up, 1-0.

The White Sox ignited a mini-rally in the fourth after back-to-back base hits from Eloy Jiménez and Luis Robert Jr., but Lars Nootbaar killed the momentum after robbing Andrew Vaughn of a double off the wall. Jake Burger wasn’t able to provide a clutch Burger Bomb this time around, so the Sox left two stranded. Nothing new to see here, folks.

The Cardinals answered back in the top of the fifth, scoring their second run on a dinky grounder to Burger that bounced high enough for the runner at third to score on contact. Quite an annoying way to give up a run, but there’s still four innings left, surely the offense will be able to get two runs, right?

No. This is the White Sox, remember?

The White Sox offense continued to remain mostly dormant, outside of Eloy Jiménez, Vaughn, and Oscar Colás, who each sprinkled a couple of singles, accounting for six of the seven total team hits. Miles Mikolas pretty much carved up the Pale Hose from top to bottom today, striking out the South Siders six times — three of those coming from Zach Remillard and Tim Anderson at the top of the order. Mikolas lasted for seven shutout innings, giving up just four hits, and walking none to snag the win.

Out in the White Sox bullpen, Aaron Bummer and Reynaldo López each had a great day on the mound — and Bummer badly needed a good outing after the nightmare 10th inning meltdown on Thursday. Tanner Banks closed out the final two innings, and he looked great in the eighth, working three consecutive outs to get out out of the inning and strand a St. Louis baserunner. Pedro Grifol made the call to leave him in in the ninth, and Jordan Walker took him deep leading off the inning, on a hanging curveball. There’s another insurance run for the Cards, putting them up, 3-0.

The Cardinals bullpen continued to shut the White Sox down for the last few innings, including getting out of a jam in the bottom of the ninth, which gave both Burger and Gavin Sheets an opportunity to tie the game, but a strikeout and a line out to left was all she wrote.

It’s so frustrating to watch a team that consistently malfunctions. Yesterday, the pitching was rough, but the bats were alive and well, allowing the Sox to come back and win the game. Today, the pitching was great and the bats were non-existent. Sure, three runs were given up, but you certainly can’t win a baseball game while scoring zero. The pitching staff struck out 14 batters today, and once again lost the game. Anyone remember this horrific stat from earlier this week?

They are now 0-9 in games where South Side pitchers strike out 14 or more batters. All this does is highlight how poor the offense consistently performs. It’s truly no wonder they are again a season-worst 15 games under .500.

Lucas Giolito is on the mound tomorrow, and Gio day is a great day to still try to get the series win, but be sure to soak it in because who knows how much longer he will be here at this point.

Six Pack of Stats

FanGraphs

Pressure Play
Yasmani Grandal pinch-hit for Seby Zavala with a runner on first and no outs, and struck out on a fastball, with the pressure rising to 3.04 LI.

Pressure Cooker
Cardinals pitcher Giovanny Gallegos did face a significant amount of pressure in the eighth, including the aforementioned Grandal strikeout — but Yasmani Grandal still faced the most for the game, with his 3.04 pLI.

Top Play
Surprisingly, it was Oscar Colás’ eighth-inning infield single. Colás made an effort to try to get a rally started (which, sadly, didn’t work), setting up the top of the order nicely with a runner on first. The play had a .078 WPA.

Top Performer
Miles Mikolas, threw seven shutout innings, stunning the White Sox offense today with a .445 WPA.

Hardest Hit
Oscar Colás was making great contact today, holding two of the top three shots of the day, led by an eighth-inning single leaving the bat at 105.9 mph.

Weakest Contact
Paul DeJong grounded out to Touki Toussaint in the fourth at just 37.9 mph.

Luckiest Hit
Andrew Vaughn’s ninth-inning base hit had a .220 xBA.

Toughest Out
Andrew Vaughn lined out hard to left in the second with a .970 xBA. Lars Nootbaar was everywhere today.

Longest Hit
No surprise here — Jordan Walker’s ninth inning homer traveled 385 feet.

Magic Number: 14
The White Sox struck out 14 Cardinals today, and still lost the game. They are now 0-9 when they whiff at least 14 batters in a game, which is extremely pathetic.

Glossary

CSW called strikes plus whiffs
Hard-hit is any ball off the bat at 95 mph or more
LI measures pressure per play
pLI measures total pressure faced in-game
Whiff a swing-and-miss
WPA win probability added measures contributions to the win
xBA expected batting average