RESOLVING THE LEDGER
This is one outlet's own report from Chicago Sun-Times — the article as it was filed.
A laugher would have been nice.
Even just a stiff breeze behind Jake Rogers’ seventh inning fly out to the wall, or a bloop hit with the bases loaded in the ninth, could have saved relief ace Grant Taylor from working back-to-back days.
For a bedraggled pitching staff facing another week of games before their next off day, a 3-0 victory at Wrigley Field to salvage a season series split, wasn’t a perfect salve for every sore hitter, every tired arm in the White Sox clubhouse. But it was a welcome one.
“There's kind of a general level of tiredness that sets in everywhere at this time of year,” said Braden Montgomery, who protected a 1-0 lead with an outfield assist in the sixth, and lengthened it with a two-run double off the tip of first baseman Michael Busch’s glove in the eighth. “When you're in between the white lines, there's nothing else to pay attention to."
It also kind of fit how this White Sox team always manages to stay afloat.
Just when Tyrone Taylor’s leadoff double in front of NL MVP candidate Pete Crow-Armstrong in the sixth spelled trouble, Montgomery — their Maserati of a right field prospect who has yet to even reach third gear — uncorked a 95 mph bullet to catch Taylor advancing to third. Just when it looked like Alex Bregman, Tuesday’s walk-off villain, was about to tie things up with a blast to left in the seventh, the converted infielder the Sox play out there, who used to play Division II ball downstate in a home stadium called “The Corn Crib,” scaled the Wrigley Field ivy for a leaping catch.
“It was kind of tricky with that basket,” said Sam Antonacci, who tried to ignore the brick wall into which he was jumping. “You want to put it out of your mind. If you have any doubt like that, odds are you're probably not going to come around with it.”
Just when it seemed like the Sox were well and truly out of starting pitching , Jose Urquidy found a level he hadn’t felt since losing most of the last two seasons to injury, since playoff runs with the Astros, to blank the Cubs — MLB’s second-best scoring offense — for six innings.
“Two or three years ago, 2023, that was my last game in the postseason,” Urquidy said of the last time he felt as good as he did Wednesday. I’ve been waiting for this kind of outing, trying to be dominant during the game. I’m very happy to have this feeling.”
With the win, the Sox are actually just 34-33 since June 1; a fact obscured by them leading an AL Central that has no other winning teams for almost all of that time. But that span also includes 35 games without All-Star slugger Munetaka Murakami, just one four-game losing streak at any point, and two grueling pockets of schedule; the latter of which only begins to level off after Thursday’s makeup game with the NL East-leading Braves.
“We don’t know any better, honestly,” said veteran Andrew Benintendi, who hit a sixth-inning RBI single off Clay Holmes, a starter the Sox scouted ahead of the trade deadline. “Regardless of what happens, each day we turn the page pretty quickly.”
Now a series-salvaging victory against their North Side neighbors, right after two exhausting walk-off losses, puts the Sox at a 33-32 run differential for the season against a Cubs team with the fifth-best record in MLB. Once more, when it looked like they shouldn’t be able to, they hung tough with a heavy hitter. And with a four-game AL Central lead, they return south, where they have the fourth-best home record in MLB.
“Really tough road trip with Detroit and then the Cubs,” said manager Will Venable. “You go 4-2 on that road trip, really every one of those games we're in, we played well. Of course we weren't perfect, but just so proud of the guys.”
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