Gamethread: Padres at White Sox

[Tonight carries on a tradition ... well, seemingly every-other-year or so ... of my writing game coverage in the voices of some of our SSS writers. Way back in 2018 it all started, with old favorites like Lurker Laura, mechanical turk, larry, Michael Kenny and even, gasp, KenWo in the lineup. Last year ... I want to say my late-season game got rained out, but more likely I just got lazy and or depressed. Two years ago, with more of the current crew around, I last took the concept for a spin. Anyway, anything to distract from a possible 100-loss season, right? All told I aim to wear 11 different costumes tonight, kicking off with spirited Hannah and lyrical Leigh.— B.B.]

Happy Friday, Sox fans.

Yeah, yeah, what else can you say about this White Sox team we haven’t said for 159 games already, so there’s not much point to getting too excited about one of my final gamethreads of the year. The White Sox begin their final series of the season against a team featuring at least two should-have-been White Sox, Manny Machado and Fernando Tatís Jr. Seriously, let’s just not get into that, can we not?

Normally I’d be giving you the pitch-mix breakdown on tonight’s two starting pitchers, especially that of Dylan Cease, who I covered just two starts ago. But here’s the thing: I’m sitting on a tarmac in Guatemala City, with hardly any coverage and not much data left, so even if I could access, I wouldn’t be wasting what’s left on the 61-98 White Sox. Sorry, guys. While I’ve been gone, my dad keeps trying to send me updates on the White Sox and I keep telling him don’t ruin my vacation or there’s still time for me to suffer next year. Sorry, Dad.

Anyway, I’ll be back to cover Sunday’s finale, so you haven’t heard the last of me yet. Go Sox? — Hannah LaMotta

There once was a W.S. fan from Nantucket
Whose fandom, he decided to chuck it
The freedom he felt
From the hand he self-dealt
Made him write Jerry and tell him to suck it

Poetry? Perhaps not? Yet another apt kiss-off to the insidious owner of the White Sox? Time will never run out on that.

If not for those last scraps of concessions money, Reinsdorf would probably be perfectly OK not even playing these final three games — or maybe not ever playing with fans, at all, especially as there’s an increasing propensity for those fans to sneak scrawled-on bedsheets and other signage insulting The Chairman, his team, or both.

For once, Reinsdorf might not be wrong, because these final three games are truly meaningless for both teams, unless you’re wondering where the White Sox will fall among the worst-ever teams in franchise history (anywhere from fifth- to 11th-worst are all still possible) or think that somehow Miami will lose out AND find a way to lose that bizarre, rain-suspended game in New York from last night AND the Padres sweep the White Sox this weekend. Does San Diego hold a tiebreaker over the Marlins/Cubs/Reds? I don’t know, and my head is starting to hurt thinking of such impossible scenarios.

FanGraphs lists San Diego’s chances at the playoffs as 0.0%, so let’s just go with that.

Dylan Cease takes the mound for the 33rd and final time in 2023, as sturdy if not as efficient as ever.

Meanwhile, there are a couple of names painfully familiar to the White Sox in the Padres lineup tonight:

Manny Machado (2.9 WAR in 137 games) and Fernando Tatís Jr. (5.5 in 138) have combined for 8.4 WAR in full-time play at third base and right field (although given TA’s season, something tells me Tatís would have found his way back to shortstop on the Sox). Machado would be the second-best player on the White Sox — and that’s battling an elbow injury for the past two seasons that not only would have seen the typical South Side player sidelined, but possibly even put down for good. It goes without saying Tatís would top even our sole superstar, the idle-for-series Luis Robert Jr., as the best player on the White Sox. To steal what Jack Nicholson told Helen Hunt in As Good As It Gets, “is that something that’s bad for you to be around?”

The first pitch is set for 6:40 p.m. Central, 65° with a light east wind. Usual broadcast suspects. — Leigh Allan