If there’s a message from the White Sox for other American League playoff contenders with two months left of the season, it’s that your foot is really never on their necks.
After two tough losses to the Yankees to open this week’s series, the White Sox won via walk-off in the 12th inning Wednesday night. That was their eighth walk-off win of the season, and seven different guys have delivered in those spots. Edgar Quero played the hero on Wednesday, bringing Tristan Peters in to score from third base with a bloop single to center field.
“I love to be in those situations,” he said. “It’s part of my game. I’m that guy. I want to be in that situation all the time. I don’t feel the pressure in that situation. I feel like I’m a better player.”
Quero’s sentiments embody what seems to be the attitude throughout the Sox locker room. Even after seven innings of getting shut down by Cy Young candidate Cam Schlittler, they found a way to get a one-two punch that tied the game in the eighth. Sam Antonacci hit a two-run homer just over the right field wall that brought the game within a run, and Munetaka Murakami followed with a first-pitch, game-tying solo shot.
On the pitching side, Davis Martin gave up four runs in the first, and then proceeded to toss five scoreless frames. Like his offensive counterparts, Martin was never really down.
“I just put my ego to the side and said we need to get as many innings as we can. The bullpen is getting worn out a little bit. Just put one foot in front of the other. Try not to look too far ahead,” Martin said.
The four runs Martin allowed in the first inning came with just one out, but from there he retired ten straight and otherwise allowed just two baserunners — both singles — before turning the ball over to the bullpen.
“[I was] trying to be really fine vs. ripping pitches and trusting my stuff in the zone,” Martin said. “Just put it to the side, don’t worry about how many runs you are about to give up. Just try to do something for your team. Put us in a good position for tomorrow. I didn’t realize it would put us in a good position for tonight.”
Thanks to the Sox tying the game in the eighth, the bullpen had to cover five innings, but the only run the group of Chris Murphy, Trevor Richards, Grant Taylor, Bryan Hudson, and Jordan Hicks allowed was the eleventh-inning free runner.
It gets very tempting this time of the baseball season to start treating certain series like litmus tests for the postseason. Naturally, a four-game set at the end of July against the Yankees is an especially tempting time to do that. Before Monday’s series opener, manager Will Venable was careful not to frame it that way.
“We’re not thinking in that way. We’ve got a long way to go to get there,” he said in regard to thinking of this as a postseason preview. “We’ve got to beat the Yankees to get there. We have just today that we’re worried about and the things that this team presents. Just an incredible challenge and it’s going to be really important for us to just focus on those things. The future implications are nowhere near our minds right now.”
That’s the appropriate mindset for the guys in the locker room, but the reality is that the trade deadline is just days away, and however that shakes out for the White Sox, they’ll have the group in place that will be tasked with winning the division and making a playoff run.
If anything, Tuesday and Wednesday’s games gave the Sox offense a chance to face the caliber of starting pitching they’ll see in the postseason. They went up against 2024 Cy Young winner Gerrit Cole on Tuesday and likely future Cy Young winner Cam Schlittler the next night and struggled against both of them, but the Sox offense is one usually tailored to attacking fastball-heavy pitchers like Schlittler.
“We talked a lot about the fastball, and that’s all it is today,” Venable said. “You know that’s the focus, is to get on the fastball. He’s got three different ones, and we’ll have to solve for each one. Teams have not had a ton of success doing it, so we gotta find a way to move the ball forward.”
But again, for any team in the other dugout against the Sox, it must seem increasingly clear that they’re never going away quietly. And the fact that they can keep pulling off wins in these situations is contributing to a growing confidence in the Sox locker room. Growing confidence in a group that felt sure of what they could accomplish going back to spring training.
“It was a dogfight out there with the back and forth stuff. Just to pull this one off, it really means a lot,” Murakami said via team interpreter Kenzo Yagi.
The Sox continuing to win and position themselves as favorites to win the American League Central means they will be buyers at Monday’s trade deadline, a role they haven’t played in several years.
The Sox are expected to be active on multiple fronts, and although pitching is their most obvious need, it’s also clear that the lineup could use a bit of a boost. One easy place to look is at catcher, where multiple injuries have kept Kyle Teel out of the lineup, and together Edgar Quero and Drew Romo aren’t providing a lot of production at the plate. Sox catchers have a league-worst .504 OPS.
Whatever moves are made, a team that’s already hard to beat will get even tougher.
“I expect the deadline to come and go, and [general manager Chris Getz] and the group to do everything they can to take advantage of the opportunity to make our team better,” Venable said. “Which I think he’s shown that he’s done every step of the way here. So I don’t know what that means really, but I know that he’s grinding every single day like from day one to make our team better, so if there’s a path to do that I know he’ll do it.”
