Just like the rest of us, the White Sox had to get up on Monday and go to work, and just like most of us, they played with some lethargy after a possibly overstimulating weekend, dropping a quiet 6-1 loss to the Mariners on Monday night to open a six-game West Coast swing. It drops them to 24-23 on the season, and two games back of the Guardians in the AL Central after their 8-2 win earlier in the evening.
The Sox had a chance to strike early, when Sam Antonacci singled to lead off the game against Bryan Woo. Munetaka Murakami followed it up with a relatively easy walk that could have applied a load of early pressure on Seattle’s ace. Unfortunately, Antonacci had already gotten a little bit greedy and stymied the potential rally with a foolish out on the bases as Murakami hit. The bats went quiet for the remainder of the inning.
On the other side of the ball, the hope was that Noah Schultz could set the pace early. While he didn’t make too many mistakes, Julio Rodríguez isn’t the kind of hitter to miss a mistake. It thus took just two hitters into the bottom of the first inning for the Sox to fall behind, as the All-Star barreled up a sinker and took it over the right-center field fence for a 1-0 lead.
Things got a little spicier in the third inning, when a pair of judgment call umpiring decisions made Antonacci’s night worse, helping put a second run on the board for the Seamen and Will Venable in the locker room.
First, there was a negated inning-ending double play when what initially appeared to be a smart snag-and-drop by Antonacci was instead ruled a catch on the fly, keeping the inning alive long enough for Randy Arozarena to shoot a double down the left field line. It then looked like a solid relay from Tristan Peters to Miguel Vargas to Drew Romo would nonetheless win the day, until the umpires again ruled runner Jhonny Pereda safe on the basis of interference by Antonacci earlier in the play. The resulting hubbub got Will Venable his first ejection of the season, and fourth as manager of the Pale Hose.
Schultz did manage to get out of the inning without further damage, and the Sox defense did find some redemption, once again courtesy of Peters. To my eyes, the former Savannah Banana’s defensive acumen and ability to execute offensive fundamentals is outweighing his lack of pop and putting him in a good position to survive the outfield roster crunch likely to happen once some combination of Everson Pereira, Jacob Gonzalez, and Braden Montgomery get the call to the majors.
Despite having some scattershot strike-throwing lapses, Schultz managed to avoid walks with much more dexterity than in previous starts.
Schultz largely used his sinker over his four-seamer, which led to fewer whiffs than we’d like to see, but he nonetheless put hitters away when he needed to. Promisingly, he used changeups to draw inning-ending whiffs from right-handed hitters in the fourth and fifth innings, which will be critical in going deep into games against good lineups moving forward. Schultz threw 56 of his 91 pitches for strikes (a solid, if not ideal, 61%), but despite working his way into a number of three-ball counts, he didn’t yield in any of them, making for the first zero-walk start of his young career.
Unfortunately, Woo cut through the Sox lineup like it was balsa wood, ultimately scattering three hits over six sharp innings. The Sox had one other real opportunity to get to the 26-year-old when Antonacci and Murakami once again reached base to start the third inning. It went for naught — Woo completely locked in amid the threat, going on to retire the next 11 batters to conclude his night. Very few of those 11 trips the plate resulted in anything close to threatening.
Schultz was chased from the game in the sixth inning, when Arozarena led off the inning with a double on a catchable fly ball that Luisangel Acuña got turned around on, and swiftly scored two batters later on a ripped single by Josh Naylor, who continued his now comically-long vendetta against the Sox with a 3-for-4 night. I have a hunch that Acuña, who has minor league options remaining, might be one of those outlasted by Peters when the roster crunch comes due. The same is probably true of Jarred Kelenic, who wore a hat trick of punchouts amid an 0-for-4 showing.
Meanwhile, it took Peters 130 plate appearances to notch his first big fly in The Show, but just three more to put up his second. When he got the head of his bat out front against a grooved sinker from Eduard Bazardo, Peters gave the Sox their first scratch of the night with a 366-foot big fly to right.
While the momentum continued to creep Chicago’s way when Drew Romo looped his only hit of the night into the outfield and Chase Meidroth drew a walk in lieu of Acuña, it died on the bat of Randal Grichuk, who pinch-hit for Antonacci and ended the inning with a weak ground out.
On a more positive note, Schultz’s newfound walk avoidance seemed to have rubbed off on Jordan Hicks, who relieved Brandon Eisert for the home half of the seventh. Hicks worked a relatively seamless inning, allowing a single but avoiding any free passes after Friday’s four-walk disaster against the Cubs.
More chances for the Sox offense materialized and went uncapitalized. Murakami reached base for the third time in the eighth inning on an infield single and moved to second on a wild pitch, but none of Miguel Vargas, Colson Montgomery, or pinch-hitter Edgar Quero could do anything with high-octane lefty José A. Ferrer, and hope sputtered out once again.
For perhaps the first time in Schultz’s big league career, he wasn’t the freshest top prospect on the field of play, as Seattle third baseman Colt Emerson received a curtain call from fans in his second-ever major league game. That was because he notched his first big league hit, and it happened to be a three-run bomb against Trevor Richards with two outs in the eighth that all but put the game away. Seattle fans hope it’ll be the first of many for the young infielder, having signed a record eight-year, $95 million extension with the Mariners several months ago — the largest pre-debut contract ever signed.
Despite a five-run lead, close Andrés Muñoz was already loose and ready to go for the ninth inning. Muñoz has struggled uncharacteristically this season, but 5.29 ERA or not he was in his best form against the White Sox, easily dispatching the bottom of their lineup to preserve a 6-1 win for the Mariners.
After the way the weekend went, it’s hard to feel too bad about dropping a sleepy Monday night game to open a West Coast road trip. The bullpen is completely spent. Not every game can be a heroic comeback; the encouraging growth and toughness we saw in Schultz is probably more important than the individual wins and losses in the 25-odd starts we’ll ideally see from him this summer.
Tomorrow is a new day, and one that will see Anthony Kay take the hill against Bryce Miller, who makes his second start of the year after missing much of the spring with an oblique strain. First pitch is at 8:40 p.m. CT, and we’ll see you there!