The Chicago White Sox are a horrific team having a horrific season. It has only gotten worse as the season has gone on. There have been plenty of terrible moments along the way.
On Monday night, the White Sox actually had a good game to be proud of which is rare in 2023. They defeated the Washington Nationals by a final score of 6-1.
Everyone in the starting lineup had at least one hit. Tim Anderson, who has been amazing in the second half of this season, had four hits. Eloy Jimenez, Yoan Moncada, and Andrew Vaughn also had multi-hit games.
Luis Robert Jr. only had one hit but it was a big one. He hit a three-run home run in the fifth inning to put the White Sox up 3-0. Of course, that would give them the lead in the game for good.
The Chicago White Sox needed a great performance on Monday night.
Outside of the great offensive performances, the best player on either team was White Sox starting pitcher Mike Clevinger. He was as good as he can be in this win.
Clevinger had a complete game victory as he went 9.0 innings giving up one run on six hits with no walks and seven strikeouts. A 9th-inning Dominic Smith home run for Washington was the only blemish.
Clevinger (on the field) has been a bright spot for the White Sox in 2023. He has pitched well when many thought he wouldn’t. He now can try to build on that going into next season with whatever team.
At the end of the game, however, you saw a bit of what makes Clevinger a hard player to root for. He decided to get into it with the Nationals after giving up that 9th-inning home run. Then, after the game, he went to the media and talked badly about them as if the White Sox weren’t about to lose 100 games.
As interesting as it was to see him pitch well and was clearly a bounce-back player of the year candidate, he just doesn’t make it easy to root for him. With all of the things that go on off the field, it is just clear that he isn’t that great of a person.
Well, the White Sox have their second game of this series on Tuesday night. We will see Jose Urena on the mound for the White Sox and we can only hope that the offense shows up again.