White Sox 5, Guardians 4: It Had to End

All win streaks have to end.

Gavin Williams had another start where he really struggled with his command. 5 walks in 5 innings led to a not great outing. 5 innings, 3 runs.

The White Sox started off the scoring with a Lenyn Sosa blast to left-center in the first, and the Guardians answered back in the 3rd with this two-run shot to right.

The White Sox tied it in the bottom of the 3rd, and then took the lead in the 5th off another Sosa bomb to left.

Rocchio tied it in the 6th, and Angel (.982 OPS in his last 10 games, .794 in his last 20) gave the Guardians the lead with this double.

The Guardians failed to score twice in extras, with a Rocchio first-pitch lineout (after Vasil had walked the first two batters) and a Manzardo GIDP ending the top of the 10th and 11th innings, respectively.

Adding on to the pain, a Manzardo miscue in the 8th led to the White Sox tying the game. Schneemann made a fantastic play to keep a grounder in the infield, and Manzardo couldn’t scoop Schneemann’s rushed throw to first. I’ve defended Manzardo (privately) for a very long time, but his leash is starting to run out. More on Manzardo at the end.

Offense is still an issue, and this team’s offense with RISP is even more problematic.

Mike Tauchman walked it off in the 11th after a shattered bat grounder rolled past Allard’s glove.

Back to Kyle. He isn’t good enough offensively right now to be a full-time DH, he is atrocious defensively (which, to be fair, could improve if he weren’t being blocked by 40-year-old Carlos Santana), and he is a nonexistent threat on the bases. His success in the majors is entirely reliant on him becoming a 120+ wRC+ bat, and I just don’t see that coming out right now. I’m also not entirely sure that even if he could be that kind of hitter that the Guardians’ hitting staff could extract that out of him. He has an OPS under .690 in the last 20 games. I’m starting to get concerned that he’s going to have a Bo Naylor-esque career arc. Light up the majors in the second half of your first league, struggle from there.

Bo Naylor had a 123 wRC+ after being called up in 2023. Manzardo had a 148 wRC+ after being called back up in 2024.

Bo Naylor had a 74 wRC+ in 2024 (difference of 49 points), Kyle has a 97 wRC+ after tonight’s game (difference of 51).

For what it’s worth, I think both could be very talented hitters but I just don’t think this organization has any idea what it’s doing when it comes to hitting development. Kwan remains the only consistently good hitter to have been developed in-house by the Guardians since Francisco Lindor’s promotion to the majors in 2015.

Though no fault of his own, this team is relying on him to be a big enough offensive threat to protect Jose and he hasn’t even come close to being that outside of the first month of the season. He is still a young player, and I’m by no means out on him, but I just haven’t seen him consistently succeed yet. I have more to say about the way the organization has handled his situation, but I don’t want to ramble.

Anyway… Daniel Schneemann went airborne earlier in the game, in case you missed it.

Jose got hit by another pitch in the same spot that’s been bothering him for a while, and as of my writing this, there is no word on his condition. He did stay in the game after the HBP.

Start another win streak tomorrow with Bibee on the mound.