Coming off a series win against the Minnesota Twins in which the Chicago White Sox probably should have won all three games, the team was looking to continue the momentum against a Kansas City Royals team that’s had their number for the past couple seasons.
The White Sox were swept by the Royals less than two weeks ago, and this week's series was an opportunity to put a damper on Kansas City’s playoff aspirations.
White Sox start series against Royals strong
The weekend momentum certainly carried over into Monday’s game. The White Sox jumped on Royals rookie starter Noah Cameron in the first inning and never looked back, cruising to a 7-0 victory and posting their second straight shutout.
Home runs by Brooks Baldwin and Korey Lee carried the offense, and Shane Smith turned the clock back to April with 7 scoreless innings, allowing just 1 hit.
Will Venable elected to remove Shane Smith from the game after seven innings, despite him having thrown just 80 pitches. With a seven-run lead, the decision worked out fine, and Tyler Gilbert put up two scoreless innings to finish off the shutout of the Royals.
Still, removing Smith while he was cruising with seemingly more left in the tank had me raising an eyebrow.
Tuesday’s ballgame was shaping up to be eerily similar to Monday. The White Sox got the scoring started early and expanded their lead to 4-0 in the sixth inning. Veteran lefty Martin Perez followed up his very solid outing against the Braves with an even better performance, shutting the Royals out on just one hit through seven innings, just like Smith the night before.
Once again, Venable elected to go to the bullpen with Perez at just 85 pitches. But this time, that decision came back to bite him.
The White Sox bullpen melted down again
Jordan Leasure came in for the eighth inning with a 4-0 lead and struggled to put hitters away. He surrendered a pair of runs, and was ultimately lifted for Grant Taylor for the final out.
Taylor took the ninth with a 4-2 lead, allowing three runs on four hits and surrendering the lead. The White Sox could do very little against Royals closer Carlos Estevez in the 9th, and Kansas City emerged victorious in the second White Sox bullpen meltdown of the week.
Chicago's bullpen gave up seven runs in two innings and blew a 10-4 lead against the Atlanta Braves just one week prior.
Will Venable made bad calls to the bullpen
Hindsight is always 20/20 when it comes to managerial decisions, and turning to Leasure and Taylor in the eighth and ninth innings is a strategy that works more often than it doesn’t, but Will Venable’s decision to remove his dominant starter in the 80-85 pitch range two days in a row doesn’t sit right with me.
The White Sox are in the middle of a stretch of 17 consecutive games without an off day, and it seems to me they should be taking every opportunity they can to conserve the bullpen.
Shane Smith threw 101 pitches in his start last week against Atlanta, his most in a game this season. Taking him out at 80 during his best outing of the year felt like a poor strategic decision in real time. Thankfully the result was okay on Monday, but Venable making nearly the exact same decision on Tuesday just to watch it backfire is a prime example of why a good process is more important than results.
The White Sox bullpen has been struggling big time in the second half of the season. They nearly blew leads of 10-1 and 13-5 in Atlanta before actually blowing a 10-4 advantage just last week. The bullpen as a whole just hasn’t been reliable, and will undoubtedly be an area of focus for Chris Getz this offseason.
The White Sox should be taking advantage of these dominant outings by their starters to give a tired, underperforming bullpen a rest.
Wins and losses don’t matter too much at this point in the season, but this is the kind of loss that can hurt momentum moving forward, and a simple decision by Venable could’ve potentially prevented it. But instead of celebrating a second straight victory over a tough opponent, Venable took the ball out of his starter’s hands, played with fire, and got burned.