White Sox Limp Toward All-Star Break After Brutal Red Sox Sweep
The White Sox were lifeless in a three-game sweep against Boston, raising concerns about a struggling offense and a team that has suddenly lost its momentum.
Video Transcript
Sam Phelan here with the White Sox Roundtable.
The White Sox got swept by the Boston Red Sox in a lifeless series this week at Rate Field, getting the Red Sox at the worst time possible.
Boston came in winners of nine of their last 12, playing with confidence and playing desperate.
The Red Sox kind of trying to get themselves back in the AL playoff picture before the All-Star break, before the trade deadline, prove that they can be a playoff team.
We've seen them hot recently, sweeping the Angels, sweeping the Yankees, and now sweeping the White Sox.
Three games and not really a competitive moment at all from the White Sox in this series.
They scored just two runs.
They don't have an extra base hit in the entire, series, and they don't have a hit with runners in scoring position that left the infield.
The White Sox offense was lifeless.
The starting pitching with Noah Schultz and Davis Martin in the first two games wasn't really all that competitive.
It was just a lopsided series, and it brings the White Sox now to forty-seven and forty-five, two games over .500, with the AL Central really tightening.
The Guardians are now tied with the White Sox.
The Minnesota Twins are two games back.
The Tigers aren't out of it.
and it takes a lot of the excitement and the wind out of your sails if you're a White Sox fan or a White Sox player before the All-Star break.
It's been such a good first half, and yet this team could still go into the All-Star break under .500.
This team could still be sellers at the trade deadline.
That might sound outrageous, but it's a tough schedule after the break, and the White Sox, have not allowed themselves to separate from the pack.
They have not proven that they are for real just yet.
We kind of keep seeing these ebbs and flows, and just as you gain confidence in them, they hit these really rough stretches.
So Munetaka Murakami is back in the lineup for the White Sox over the weekend against the Athletics.
They need him.
They need to play well.
They need to take this series from the A's, if not sweep the A's, in order to inject some life back into this club.
But, as we head into the All-Star break here, it was a really, really rough series at Rate Field from a White Sox team that simply looked overmatched by Boston all three games out.
