White Sox (65-53): 4
Royals (52-66): 9

An infield single by Alcides Escobar would come around to bite Jake Peavy in the 1st (and perhaps again later) when the very next batter, Alex Gordon, hit a double down the line to drive Escobar in. In the 3rd, a trio of errors would prove even more costly. Miscues by Tyler Flowers, Gordon Beckham and Alex Rios helped the Royals to a pair of unearned runs. Peavy, for his part, didn’t pitch terribly. He struck out 6 and walked just 1 in his 5.1 innings of work. Just 3 of his runs were earned.

The White Sox offense, however, did not do the things they were supposed to do. Multiple times scoring threats arose, with runners on early in innings and outs to work with. Multiple times those innings would end without any damage being incurred. Enter Paul Konerko. As was the case last time Konerko missed a string of games, he is primed to go on another tear upon reentry to the lineup. In the 6th the Sox finally got on the board against Chen when Paulie knocked a 2-run HR. Eric Hosmer answered Paulie’s shot with one of his own as he used his smooth swing to put one more tally on the board.

In the top half of the 8th Kevin Youkilis achieved his 1,000th career hit. The very next batter, Adam Dunn, achieved a milestone of his own by swatting his 400th career HR and more importantly at the moment bringing the White Sox within one run of KC.

Between the 4 errors and serving up 4, count ‘em, 4 infield hits to Alcides Escobar (he would come around to score 3 times) the Sox still had a shot in this game until Mike Moustakas took Bretty Myers deep to extend the Royals lead to 9-4.

Plus: Milestones are pretty neat, and the White Sox have seen 3 of them this season. Unfortunately all 3 were in losing efforts, but it was very kind and efficient of the boys in black to condense these 2 into 1 losing effort.

Minus: Bruce “Cy” Chen. Is it real? Is it mental? Is it sample size? The Sox can’t seem to get past the guy. Of course, more glaring than the Chen factor, being that 4 runs were put on the board, is all of the errors. Can’t win games that way, and the Sox had done a great job for most of the season in that regard. Put it behind, salvage the next one.

Player of the Game
Adam Dunn – .149 WPA

Source: FanGraphs

Twins (40-56): 4
White Sox (51-45): 7

Alex Rios is really good. No, I'm serious! (Jerry Lai-US PRESSWIRE)

Gavin Floyd didn’t have his good control, but it was good enough for the purposes of the evening. He went 6 innings, allowed 6 hits and just 2 earned runs. He did walk 6 batters though, and only managed to strike out 1. He made good friends with the double play ball, though and they helped him out of jams when necessary. The Sox turned 1,2,3,4,5 double plays on the evening.

The big difference that put the White Sox over the top was the long ball. Paul Konerko, Adam Dunn and Alex Rios all hit homeruns to constitute all 7 White Sox runs. Rios’ blast may have traveled 450 feet bouncing in the left field bleachers up to the concourse area. All of those tallies came against Liriano, helping the offense to remember, they can hit. No better way to beat losing streak.

In addition to this being Floyd’s first appearance since his return, Jesse Crain came in and made his official return as well. He was greeted rather rudely by Ryan Doumit, who hit his 10th HR of the year. Nice to have Crain back, hope to see more Jesse Crain and less Crain Wreck. Brett Myers also made his White Sox debut in this one. He and his beard faced just one batter and go the out.

Plus: Do you remember offense? I remember offense, and I saw some tonight. This is the team that is competing for the AL Central.

Minus: It’s good that Gavin Floyd is back, I’d just prefer that he didn’t walk a batter an inning, that would be best.

Player of the Game
Paul Konerko – .262 Win Expectancy added

Source: FanGraphs

Now what for the Sox? Does Williams respond? Does he need to?

One could argue that the White Sox are good to stand pat. The offense is in a slump, but for the most part there is positive overall value with each position for the team. The starting pitching has a little revolving door action due to injury, but there are 6 guys that could be more than serviceable starters (if you are a believer in Good Gavin and Good Philip Humber) ready and willing when healthy. If you’re feeling charitable you could call it 7 and include Dylan Axelrod. The bullpen has got Jesse Crain back, and Brett Myers is a solid addition, is there more experience necessary there?

The piece that is probably up for the most debate is the starting pitching. There is strength there, but injured can’t pitch. It hasn’t reared its ugly head just yet, but neither can tired. Chris Sale is going to either hit a ceiling that the White Sox have placed above him, or a real, physical one. If the former, he just misses some starts here and there. If the latter, he gets shut down completely, missing any potential postseason action. Jose Quintana, though lower profile, is subject to this as well. Quintana has thrown over 70 innings this season. His career high in the minors is 2011’s 102 and it’s not close. In 4 other MiLB seasons he didn’t go over 55. Jake Peavy has been healthy so far but between his insistence on trying to manage his own innings despite coaching wishes and the lack of precedent from the type of injury he’s missed so much of the past couple seasons because of, it’s hard to know what to expect of his health.

For the record KW was characteristically non-committal in his statements regarding whether or not the White Sox would make any more moves prior to the trade deadline.

I’d love to sit here and say that it’s all good. Pitching is covered. There are capable guys out there and they will be able to continue performing through the remainder of the year. But only one part of that statement is true.