Get Used To It

The White Sox are going to be the White Sox, very unpredictable, and I can either get used to it or go crazy. I’ll take door #1, please. Yesterday, they jumped all over Phillies’ starter Adrew Painter, scoring four runs in the first inning on their way to a 6-3 win. Later, Colson Montgomery homered, his sixteenth, though he still doesn’t look good at the plate. Rookie Jacob Gonzalez, who does look good at the plate, also went deep for his first major-league homerun. Go figure. Sam Antonacci went hitless but got the first inning started by getting hit for the fourteenth time this season, most in the majors. Tristan Peters has come out of nowhere to claim a starting job in the outfield with a combination of hitting—3-for-4 with an RBI—and fielding. We’re talking Ken Berry-caliber glove here. So, it’s going to be a roller coaster of a season. All I ask is for Chris Getz to call up Braden Montgomery. Montgomery hit .313 at Double-A Birmingham, which earned him a promotion to Triple-A Charlotte. The pitching must be tough in the International League. The 23-year old outfielder is “only” batting .312. Montgomery and a heeled Kyle Teel added to the lineup, oh my. Now, that I could definitely get used to.

Not Ready for Prime Time

If the White Sox want to play with the big boys, they’re going to have to do better than they did last night in Philadelphia. Given a 2-0 lead going into the bottom of the second, starter Anthony Kay turned it into a three-run deficit, courtesy of four hits and a walk. At the end of the night, it was Phillies 8 Sox 6. The Sox actually tied the game at six in the seventh, only for the bullpen to go south. Bryan Hudson gave up a run on his own and was charged with another when Seranthony Dominguez bounced a ball past catcher Edgar Quero. Bad pitching was followed by bad luck in the eighth and maybe some bad decision-making in the dugout. The Sox put two runners on with nobody out when Rikuu Nishida lined into a double play. Maybe baserunner Jacob Gonzalez was to blame for not getting back to second base in time, but why was Nishida swinging away in the first place? Speed is the essence of Nishida’s game. Him bunting puts pressure on the defense. First baseman Bryce Harper had already misplayed a ball in the inning to put on a baserunner. What’s to say he wouldn’t have done it again? So, again we’re going to see what this team can do in a tough situation. Some good starting pitching would be nice, and timely hitting, too. Oh, and some help out of the bullpen Yes, a tall order, but that’s what you have to do in order to beat the big boys.

Perchance to Dream

History didn’t repeat itself in the Illinois General Assembly early Monday morning; it didn’t even rhyme. No, the Bears went home—wherever that is—empty-handed. Back in 1988, state house majority leader Mike Madigan employed an old trick as the clock approached midnight on May 31st, the yearly end to the legislative session in Springfield; Madigan literally stopped the clock on the assembly floor. This allowed Gov. Jim Thompson time to wrestle up the votes for a publicly funded White Sox stadium, technically, after the midnight deadline. That’s what the Bears and just about every Chicago sports and news journalist figured would happen again. Only they were wrong. What happened? Well, these are different times, and what the Bears wanted—the power to negotiate (more like dictate) their own property taxes for their proposed stadium/entertainment district in Arlington Heights—rubbed a whole lot of people the wrong way. You could tell by the lukewarm reception legislators gave to the idea. They had to be getting an earful from constituents back home. On top of that, the Bears were the Bears, mixing incompetence with arrogance as is their style. They threatened more than cajoled, and it blew up in their face. Now, the team has to decide if it really wants to relocate to northwest Indiana, where brown fields grow if they don’t exactly glow. I have a sneaking suspicion Chicago is back in play as a preferred stadium site. All it will take is jilting Indiana and Arlington Heights. If any organization can pull that off, it’s your Munsters of the Midway.

Oh, Ye of Little Faith

I set yesterday’s White Sox game to TIVO and went about my business, namely, washing fifteen windows and fifteen screens around the house. I thought my reward would be a job well done. Wrong. With the ladder and hoses put away and the towels and buckets brought back in the basement, I settled my bulky back into the couch to catch up on the game. Four runs in the top of the first? Erick Fedde going 4.2 innings before giving up a hit in an 8-0 Sox win over the Twins? Jacob Gonzalez recording his first two MLB RBIs with a bases-loaded single? What was going on here? Well, I wondered how much the 2026 White Sox had grown, and here was my answer. This was yet another game they might have frittered away. Instead of the bad overwhelming everything else (see 2023, 2024 and much of 2025), the good kept the bad at bay. And by bad, I mean Colson Montgomery. Sam Antonacci went 4-for-4 and reached base six times. Montgomery went 0-for-6 with four strikeouts. Antonacci vibes ruled. It would’ve been nice to have Munetaka Murakami available for the next series, in Philadelphia, for a Murakami-Kyle-Schwarber matchup. Oh, well. Someone gives you a lemon, you make Antonacci and Gonzalez out of it.

Rebound or No?

Well, this had to happen eventually. Davis Martin got pounded by the Twins last night, giving up six runs on ten hits in not even five innings of work. Twins 6 White Sox 4. Oh, and Erick Fedde is slated to go this afternoon. Now we find out just how much the Sox have grown.

Nothing Doing

White Sox rookie starter David Sandlin and the Twins squared off for the second time in six days, and the Twins were ready. The Sox righthander gave up eight runs on eight hits and four walks in four-plus innings. Twins 9 Sox 6, with two homeruns from Miguel Vargas and not much of anything from Colson Montgomery. I have to remember it’s all a marathon. Like the Bears getting a new stadium. Team McCaskey may have thought the Illinois General Assembly was going to roll over for them and pass sweetheart property-tax legislation, only it didn’t happen. I think voters sent a message legislators couldn’t ignore, that everything costs too much, and a billionaire’s tax break would inevitably raise taxes for everyone else. Oh, to be a fly on the wall of the conference room where the Bears’ “brain trust” will meet to figure out a next step. The weeping, the gnashing of teeth, the realization that Indiana is in Indiana…

Déjà vu(s)

I remember a game when Chris Sale was still with the White Sox, against the Rangers in June of 2015. Sale was vintage Sale, which meant that he was virtually untouchable. In this instance, the lanky lefty threw eight shutout innings, giving up two singles and no walks while striking out fourteen, all this on 111 pitches. The Sox went into the ninth with a 1-0 lead. Well, manager Robin Ventura decided to pull Sale for David Roberston, who proceeded to give up two runs and lose the game. The next morning, I was out walking the dog and heard a woman’s voice off in a yard somewhere. “Why did he [Ventura] do that?” the unseen fan demanded to know. “I mean, Chris Sale was pitching!” Something like that happened yesterday, only it was the Tigers’ Keider Montero pitching and manager A.J. Hinch making like Robin Ventura. Hinch opted to lift Montero after six innings of two-hit, shutout ball accomplished with a mere 65 pitches on a pleasant Sunday afternoon a little on the cool side (66 degrees). In other words, a pitcher-friendly day. But Hinch did what he did, and the Sox again did what they did on Friday night, mixing longball and smallball. First, Colson Montgomery homered off of Drew Anderson, who then gave up three straight singles to Chase Meidroth, Jacob Gonzalez (his first major-league hit in his first game) and Tristan Peters, the last one scoring the first one. Rookie reliever Tyler Davis came in to pitch the nine and recorded his first save. Sox 2 Tigers 1. I hope that Chris Sale fan, wherever she is, enjoyed the outcome nearly as much as I did.