Almost a Great Game

The White Sox were ahead of the Royals 14-4 heading into the bottom of the eighth inning in Kansas City last night. Seven late runs later, the Sox had themselves a 14-11 win to remain one game back of the Guardians with five to go. Always lead with the good stuff in a win. The Sox cranked out four homeruns, Chase Meidroth; Brenton Doyle; Randal Grichuk; and Munetaka Murakami doing the honors. Meidroth collected a career-high five RBIs while Grichuk went 4-for-5 with three extra-base hits, falling a triple short of the cycle. And, hey, Tommy Pham scored twice on two walks. Now, for the not good, as in, will Colson Montgomery ever snap out of it? Last night, Montgomery went 0-for-5 with three strikeouts, inching him closer to the major-league record of 223. Montgomery has 219 and counting. If the second-year shortstop’s offensive numbers are going down, Anthony Kay’s ERA is heading up, also in the wrong direction. The veteran lefthander struggled through four-plus innings last night, giving up four runs on seven hits, a walk and a hit-by-pitch. A suddenly with-it Noah Schultz picked up the win with two scoreless innings. In three relief appearances spanning 5.2 innings since his return from Triple-A Charlotte, the maybe-next Randy Johnson has yet to allow a run. The two pitchers who followed Schultz out of the pen, Trevor Richards and Luis Castillo, weren’t nearly as good. Richards gave up three earned runs in an inning of work, Castillo four runs. Ick. That’s the kind of bad mop-up work that can give the other side unwanted momentum. But I’m in good-news’ mode here. Schultz pitched well, and the other A-team relievers got an extra day of rest. Their availability should cancel any bad-guy momentum. I think.