Hitting woes continue, as White Sox drop finale in St. Louis

I am still of the belief that Colson Montgomery is going to have a long and productive big league career. I doubt that’s making him feel any better right now, after it was his fly out with the bases loaded that left the potential winning run on base and sank the White Sox closer to division-losing oblivion with a 3-1 loss to the St. Louis Cardinals. That came on top of his failure to convert on a hard-hit ground ball in the hole at shortstop that was ruled an error and ultimately led to all three of the Cardinals runs on the afternoon.

The extended slump that he’s been mired in for more than two months reared its head again this afternoon, as he went without a hit for the sixth time in seven games. He’s already shown emphatically that he can rebound from stretches of being so lost, and it still seems doubtful this will be career-defining. Still, if it doesn’t find a resolution over the next 13 games, it might wind up being season-defining for the Sox.

On the other hand, if anything is going to be season-defining, it’s this week’s showdown with the Cleveland Guardians, who finish the day just a half-game behind the South Siders after a near double-digit victory to conclude their weekend. If you had told me in April that the division championship would come down to a September series against a division opponent, I would have been ecstatic to even have that conversation. I remain so.

That certainly doesn’t make it any less nail-biting.

The losing effort today certainly was not the fault of David Sandlin, who was simply nails for five pristine innings, using a six-pitch arsenal to hold the Cardinals out of the hit column until faltering in the sixth. His final line of 5 2/3 innings, three runs (all unearned), and five strikeouts without a free pass brings his total to 18 1/3 innings of one-earned-run ball and a 24:3 strikeout-to-walk ratio over his last three starts.

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The first two of those starts came in Triple-A, but don’t seem to have been a mirage. We’ll never know if the Sox would have an extra tick or two in the win column had they allowed one of Sandlin’s starts frittered away in Charlotte to spell an exhausted pitching staff. But it’s hard not to wonder.

The offense’s ineptitude of late remains their primary impediment to winning. Their futility with runners in scoring position remains nearly unthinkable, compiling another 0-for-7 showing today. At the very least, though, Chicago did hold a lead, tallying one in the second inning when Andrew Benintendi scored after singling, moving to third on a Tristan Peters double, and trotting home on a Chase Meidroth fly out.

A bigger lead was paramount, because the depth of the bullpen, or lack thereof, once again haunted them. Will Venable has a clear-cut set of five options whom he trusts above all else in leverage situations: Grant Taylor, Bryan Hudson, Sean Newcomb, Jordan Hicks, and as of late, Hagen Smith. All five of them pitched yesterday, and three of them were likely fully unavailable today.

The drop-off from those five to the rest of the staff is steeper than the stats may indicate. Trevor Richards, Tyler Davis and Chris Murphy may post solid numbers, but games like today demonstrate why you simply need more than a handful of power-up arms to be a good team in today’s league.

Venable’s seemingly dogmatic reliance on platoon matchups left Murphy as the only feasible option to take over for Sandlin with the bases loaded and two outs in the sixth. It was a situation they never should have been in, due to Montgomery’s error. Nonetheless, these are games that elite teams eke out because when they do find themselves in such situations, the pitchers they can turn to are more effective than Murphy, whose stuff simply wasn’t good enough to beat a talented run-producer like Alec Burleson, whose double held up as the difference in the game:

Murphy wound up with a nice-looking stat line, recording all four of his outs via strikeout and working a clean second inning of work after Burleson’s double. Again, we’ll never know how things would have gone if Taylor or Newcomb had been available to gas things up more than Murphy’s solid but relatively unremarkable arsenal. But at this point in the season, the fact that Venable has one, maybe two options who he can ask to come in with the bases loaded and assault a batter with triple-digits and a nasty slider or splitter is a serious liability. At this point in the season, these are the moments that win and lose playoff spots. Not to speak of the kinds of big moments you see in actual playoff games themselves.

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In spite of all the angst, all of the hand-wringing, all of the here-we-blow-again talk emanating from all corners of the fan base, the White Sox hold their fate in their own hands with two weeks to go. If they win the Cleveland series, they’ll have a multi-game lead with single digits left to play and will have held the division tiebreaker. If they lose, they’ve still got one more game to play than the Guardians, and still have the tiniest measure of control over how close they can keep things.

I still maintain that the White Sox are a more talented team than the Guardians. That doesn’t always play out over a three-game series. It hasn’t played out over the last few weeks, but the pendulum always swings the other way, eventually. If this is the week where it starts to turn, the playoffs are here. If it’s not, there’s still time yet. It’s not the best position to be in, but as cold as the White Sox have gone, it’s still a more advantageous one than Cleveland’s.

It would be a mistake to attribute too much to the bullpen, or to Colson alone, of course. Munetaka Murakami went hitless once again, as did Brenton Doyle. Tristan Peters, Miguel Vargas and Sam Antonacci all went a relatively ineffective 1-for-4, and while Kyle Teel walked twice, nobody could pick him up.

This group of slumpers is set to see the best Cleveland has to offer in Gavin Williams, Foster Griffin and Parker Messick. The Sox will be living and dying with Sean Burke, Davis Martin and … someone else. As inconsistent and bad and brilliant as Burke and Martin have both been, at this point I have no problem dancing with who brought us here.

Let’s lay the cards out on the table and beat the Guardians. First pitch is at 5:40 p.m. CT, and we’ll see you there.

MVP
David Sandlin: 5 2/3 IP, 3 R, 0 ER, 0 BB, 5 SO

Runners-Up
Trevor Richards: IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 0 K
Kyle Teel: 0-for-2, 2 BB

Cold Cat
Colson Montgomery: 0-for-3, BB, E

Runners-Up
Chris Murphy: 1 1/3 IP, 2 H, 0 ER, BS
Munetaka Murakami: 0-for-3, BB, K