The White Sox chose not to spend exuberantly on their last contention cycle and they paid the price (no pun intended) for it by missing the playoffs in both 2015 and 2016.  Knowing that the White Sox lacked talent in their farm system during those years, I consistently advocated that the White Sox should add talent to their rosters through top-tier free agent acquisitions. The White Sox didn’t have prospect capital to improve the team, but they did have cash to utilize and the easiest way to use that cash and improve the team is not just free agency, but the most talented free agents available.  But by now, if you haven’t figured it out, it’s clear the White Sox are particularly allergic to large free agent acquisitions — the evidence is abundant. The White Sox are one of very few teams to have never given out a $100 million contract to a free agent. In 2015, the White Sox passed on getting involved in free agent derbies for top free agents like Max Scherzer and Nelson Cruz, instead turning their focus to more modest acquisitions. When presented with the opportunity to greatly upgrade their club’s outfield before the 2016 season the White Sox again passed on adding top free agents like Yoenis Cespedes, Justin Upton, or Dexter Fowler because they didn’t see enough value in the signings. And Rick Hahn has even gone on record saying that free agency is where teams see the worst return on investment.  You start to add all of these things together and it becomes clear that the White Sox would prefer to avoid free agency as much as possible and looking to the future, expecting the White Sox to add a top-tier player, say Bryce Harper, to their team through free agency is a fool’s errand.

So if the White Sox continue to shut themselves off from free agency as a vector for talent, they need to find other ways to invest in the team. They started on that path with a big amateur free agent acquisition in Luis Robert (though the total monetary cost of that move was mitigated by a reduced team payroll, which continued throughout the 2017 season), but now they need to continue following that mold to help the team.  Luckily, the Giancarlo Stanton trade has created an opportunity for the White Sox of all teams.

The Yankees came into the 2017-2018 offseason prioritizing trimming the payroll below the luxury tax. They didn’t anticipate acquiring Stanton from the Marlins, but Stanton wasn’t willing to go to the St. Louis Cardinals or San Francisco Giants, leaving very few teams as options for his services. When the Yankees realized the marginal cost that they would have to pay to acquire such a talented player (he was worth an amazing 8.5 WARP last season and has averaged moer than 6 WARP during the last four seasons) they couldn’t help but jump at the opportunity. This maneuver, while very valuable in a baseball sense, pushed their payroll to greater heights and has put more pressure on them to move other contracts off of the roster.  Their first move to relieve this pressure was to trade Chase Headley along with pitcher Bryan Mitchell to the Padres for non-prospect Jabari Blash.  The Padres effectively bought Mitchell by taking on Chase Headley and this is exactly what I propose the White Sox do for another Yankee: Jacoby Ellsbury.

Over at Fangraphs, Travis Sawchik wrote about Ellsbury and his estimated negative surplus value to the Yankees as a player due nearly $70 million, including his contract buyout, over the next 3 years. Sawchik concluded that a prospect like Clint Frazier, Baseball Prospectus’s 16th ranked prospect entering the 2017 season, would be the cost of making an Ellsbury salary dump possible. Given the additional context that Frazier, a corner outfielder, is now blocked on the Yankees by both Aaron Judge, the newly acquired Stanton, and even the perfectly solid Brett Gardner, one has to believe the Yankees would be willing to part with him if an opportunity to improve their club’s financial situation arose. The White Sox should absolutely be willing to provide the Yankees this opportunity.

Earlier this winter, Hahn had said the White Sox were likely going to have a payroll around $70 million. The White Sox haven’t had a payroll that low in more than a decade, 2005 to be exact. The White Sox also have incredibly limited future payroll commitments in 2019 and 2020, the last two years of Ellsbury’s contract. Suffice it to say that the White Sox would easily be able to absorb the entire Ellsbury contract without issue.  The White Sox also enter the 2018 season without a true center fielder on the roster, assuming they want to continue to deploy Leury Garcia in a super-utility role. They could use this roster vacancy as a selling point to Ellsbury who would have to waive his no-trade clause in order to be dealt, which should be the biggest impediment to the consummation of this deal. The real prize for the White Sox would be adding a prospect of Frazier’s caliber who would be under team control for six more seasons at very reasonable price, fitting perfectly into the next contention window. It’s an opportunity that’s almost too good to be true for a team that wants to compete with a modest budget and avoid massive free agent contracts. I just hope the White Sox are able to take advantage of this opportunity while they have a chance.

Lead Image Credit: Shanna Lockwood-USA TODAY Sports

• -The return for Todd Frazier, David Robertson, and Tommy Kahnle.
• -The high difference of opinions on Blake Rutherford.
• -Whether trading Kahnle was the right thing to do.
• -Any other trades likely? Does anyone want Melky Cabrera?
• -The insanely mediocre American League Central
• -Yoan Moncada’s promotion and what to watch from him the rest of the season
• -Other prospects who might get called up this season. Reynaldo Lopez? Lucas Giolito?

Also be sure to check out our summary of Wednesday’s deal, as well as BP’s transaction analysis. You can also read a more in depth take on the decision to trade Kahnle by Ryan Schultz, and Collin’s closer look at Moncada’s White Sox debut. Follow us on Twitter @BPSouthSide.

You can subscribe to this podcast on iTunes by searching for “The Catbird Speaks.”

When the White Sox traded for Kahnle, there was a good chance he would simply never cut it on a competitive team.  The stuff was always there, providing 11.1 and 13.5 percent swinging strike rates in his two seasons with the Rockies. He struck out batters at a rate of 22.1 and 25.2 percent those years. While that isn’t elite, it showed his ability to miss bats. The biggest problem was a common one among young pitchers — finding the strike zone. His 18.1 percent walk rate in 2015 was indicative of that issue. Even in his first season with the White Sox, his walk rate was at an uncomfortable 16.8 percent.

In this breakout 2017 season, however, the walk rate has plummeted to just 4.9 percent. That alone would have helped Kahnle become a more useful pitcher. What has been even more crucial is that his ability to find the strike zone has led to even more strikeouts. 37 innings into the 2017 season, Kahnle has struck out 43.1 percent of the batters he has faced. Only Craig Kimbrel has struck out hitters at a higher rate.

Kahnle’s much-improved control has had a domino effect on his pitching. With his walk rate reduced, hitters are more willing to chase pitches out of the zone. The swing percentage on pitches out of the zone against Kahnle has risen by 11.2 percent. He’s gotten first pitch strikes 53.7 percent of the time, a drastic increase from a season ago. He’s also dramatically improved the number of 0-2 counts he’s manufactured, now sitting at a rate of 29.3 percent. What these numbers boil down to is that he’s getting ahead in counts, and as a result getting whiffs to finish off batters.

All of this has come in one breakout season, or half season, really. There’s no certainty that it will last. Relievers are volatile, and a pitcher magically finding control doesn’t often last for a long stretch of time. That’s where the White Sox brilliance in his handling comes into play.

Relievers are wildly unpredictable, but the trade market at the deadline is incredibly lucrative for teams with bullpen arms to spare. The White Sox are aware of both of these things. Debates raged about whether the White Sox should deal the righty with three years of team control remaining. When the uncertainty of relievers is considered, it was almost a no-brainer that he should have been dealt at the height of his value. If a team was willing to give up valuable assets for a reliever with relatively no track record, the team should have absolutely jumped at that opportunity.

While opinions of Blake Rutherford certainly vary, he remains a Top 100 prospect at nearly every reputable prospect website, including being ranked 49th overall by Baseball Prospectus coming into the season (he was not included in the Midseason Top 50). That’s valuable to a White Sox team in the early years of a rebuild. And while Kahnle didn’t fetch that talent alone, he was likely the most valuable of the three pieces involved in the trade. The White Sox could have seen that value and decided to keep him on the staff. Instead, they decided to trade him while it is reasonable to assume he is at peak performance. It is this type of move that could be invaluable for the White Sox in the next few seasons, especially with pitching coach Don Cooper having a good reputation, albeit mostly anecdotal, for fixing broken pitchers.

The buy low-sell high tactic is certainly not a new one to teams in the throes of a rebuild. However, it’s not often that it works this well. Even by just looking inwardly at the White Sox roster, examples can be found of failures in this strategy. But when it works, it can turn something small into something really valuable.

Beckham’s failures were an indictment of the poor player development regime of recent years past, but they were able to turn him into Yency Almonte. Almonte in turn brought Kahnle to the South side. That provided the White Sox with half a season of a very valuable reliever, which then led to a Top 100 prospect landing in the organization. If the team is able to do that even just one more time, it would be a massive help in the process of rebuilding and piling on the organizational depth.

Lead Photo Credit: Kelley L Cox-USA TODAY Sports

Concurrent with the trade, general manager Rick Hahn also announced that heralded top prospect Yoan Moncada would make his debut with the team Wednesday.

Rutherford is the headliner here as far as the return. The 18th overall pick in last year’s draft was often linked to the White Sox in the weeks leading up to the draft. He was considered arguably the most polished high school hitter in that class, but fell because of bonus demands and a ceiling that isn’t considered quite as high as those who went ahead of him. As BP’s Greg Goldstein put it on Twitter, he has a solid all-around game but no standout tool. He’s an outfielder who’s played a lot of center early in his career but is likely going to be destined for a corner long term. He was No. 49 in BP’s Preseason Top 101 but didn’t make the recently released Midseason Top 50, however, he’s ranked as highly as No. 30 on MLB Pipeline’s Top 100, and was No. 36 on Baseball America’s Midseason Top 100.

Clarkin is a left-hander who was a first round pick in 2013 and has yet to pitch above A-ball, primarily because of injuries. Entering this season he’s thrown only 178 innings in his career, but he’s had modest success in High-A through 75 innings thus far in 2017. Polo is a 22-year-old outfielder originally signed by Pirates in 2012 who came over to the Yankees for Ivan Nova last summer. He was on Colombia’s World Baseball Classic team this spring, and has split time between High-A and Double-A with the Yankees this season. He was not in their system’s Top 30, per MLB Pipeline.

The final piece is Clippard, who is decidedly not a prospect. The 32-year-old veteran has a 4.95 ERA with the Yankees in 2017 and is a free agent after this season. He was likely included solely to help balance out the salaries (the Yankees are taking on the entirety of the money owed to Frazier and Robertson), and to eat some innings for the Sox for the rest of this season.

Frazier and Robertson being traded wasn’t a surprise, but packaging the two together, in addition to Kahnle, was a bit of a shocker. Kahnle’s trade value had obviously increased exponentially since the start of the season and there had been some debate as to whether or not he was worth trading at peak value or hanging onto as a present and potentially future bullpen asset. Hahn said in a press conference Tuesday that the trade wouldn’t have happened without the addition of Kahnle, and given the volatility of relievers, as well as the suddenness of his ascension, it’s tough to blame the White Sox for selling highly.

Combining those trades with the call-up of Moncada (as well as reliever Brad Goldberg; sorry for overshadowing you, Brad!) is a logical choice as Moncada can take Frazier’s place on the infield at second base with Yolmer Sanchez and Tyler Saladino now splitting time at third base. It will be important, of course, to temper expectations as he adjusts to the majors once again after an extremely small trial last September.

Lead Photo Credit: Kelley L. Cox / USA Today Sports Images

Whether you want to chalk it up to nerves, rust, or the fact that he’s simply not yet the caliber of pitcher the White Sox hope he will become, regardless of injury, Rodon couldn’t find the strike zone Wednesday.

First, the positive: The fastball velocity was fine. He was routinely pumping 93-95 mph gas with the four-seamer, and when he found the zone, Yankees hitters had trouble doing much with it. His wipeout slider still had the same bite, such as when he struck out Tyler Wade with it to end a prolonged first inning. Despite the struggled, he gutted through five innings and saw his pitch count climb to 94 pitches, which is about what he was at in his last few rehab outings.

The downside, of course, is that while his stuff looked just as we remembered, it rarely found the plate. The fastball command was particularly out of whack — he walked three in the first inning and six total in his five innings of work — and that aforementioned slider, so dangerous when it looks like it’s headed for the strike zone, was often far enough off the plate that good hitters could spit on it.

For a pitcher with both his skills and flaws, it’s not an unsurprising outcome for his first start back from a prolonged layoff, but while the injury was an unfortunate setback in a season we expected him to take “the leap” from promise to stardom, seeing his stuff in good shape, as fleeting as it may have been, is a baby step in the right direction.

2. Avisail Garcia’s hot start to the season was so impressive and unlikely that we waited and waited and waited and waited and waited for the other shoe to drop. Surely, this was not the hitter he’d become. He’s been good but it’s totally, definitely not going to continue. OK, fine, it’s time to talk about how good he is.

Poof.

Just as we started to let our collective guard down and maybe kind of believe in Garcia’s ascension from disappointment to above-average contributor, he’s suddenly found himself in a teensy, tiny, itty, bitty, sky-is-falling, major, terrible, sound-the-alarms 0-for-19 and 1-for-23 funk.

He also left Wednesday’s loss with a sore left knee that he described as “OK” but he’ll have an MRI on Thursday and is supposedly day-to-day.

Joking aside, Garcia’s hot first half of the season has been a pleasant sight for a team that’s now 11 games under .500. Whether you’ll be in the “told you so” crowd if this is the start of a hellacious descent, or you’ll just be a little bummed (I’m the latter), well … that’s up to you.

3. Rick Renteria is developing a bit of a reputation.

Ejection/Games Managed

Rick Renteria: 4.60%
Earl Weaver: 3.69%
Bobby Cox: 3.57%

— James Fegan (@JRFegan) June 29, 2017

The White Sox manager was ejected for the third time in the last six games Wednesday after a bit of a disagreement about the strike zone with home plate umpire Hunter Wendelstedt during the Yankees’ five-run eighth inning. Jake Petricka, who happened to allow all five of those runs, including a two-run bomb to Aaron Judge, was also, not-so-coincidentally ejected.

The White Sox have experienced both ends of the managerial craziness scale in recent years, from stark-raving lunatic madman Ozzie Guillen to “Is he awake?” Robin Ventura. I don’t know if I’d go so far as to put Renteria in the Guillen category yet, but he’s been on a bit of a roll of late.

4. Adam Engel went 2-for-3 with his second career home run in Wednesday’s loss, and has quietly hit .319/.360/.511 in limited time during two separate stints with the White Sox this season.

The hot start has been nice to see, particularly given the struggles of equally flawed prospect Jacob May to start the season. But he’s always had shortcomings at the plate that will need to be overcome for him to stick around long term. Despite those small sample size numbers thus far, he’s also striking out in 33 percent of his plate appearances and that’s unlikely to change.

Still, Engel is athletic and can run like a damn gazelle. He’s likely the best defensive center fielder the White Sox have anywhere near the majors right now, and if he can continue to provide any semblance of production with the bat going forward, the White Sox may have found a nice fourth outfielder/defensive substitute/pinch runner type. That ain’t much, but it’s not nothin.

5. The White Sox played 44 of their first 71 games on the road, and Dan Hayes wrote a nice piece on how Renteria has tried to help the team combat travel fatigue. Intangible stuff like this is impossible to quantify when it comes to how it affects the team’s performance and mentality, but it’s nice to see Renteria thinking outside-the-box and having regard for the little things, which is something that can easily be overlooked when you’re so used to the status quo.

Lead Photo Credit: David Banks-USA TODAY Sports

When you’re throwing strikes down in the zone, particularly with the sinking fastball, you’re more than likely going to induce weak contact. Even the Yankees’ four base hits were of the weaker variety, and only one of them came on pitches in the upper half of the strike zone. Gonzalez threw 64.7 percent of his pitches on the night for strikes, which is exactly his career average, but what made this pitches successful is that he rarely left the ball up. More than half of his 88 pitches — 53 percent — came in that lower half, and when he missed, even that seemed to have a purpose, as he pounded left-handed hitters inside or swept a curve or slider far outside to the righties.

As was the case last season, for Gonzalez to be effective he needs to locate, something that’s becoming an increasingly familiar theme this season with fellow veteran junk-ballers James Shields and Derek Holland on the staff. For pitchers without swing-and-miss stuff to find success, they have to be deceptive enough to keep hitters off-balance with both location and speed, and on Tuesday, Gonzalez did as such with the 76-mph curveball and 80-mph slider, mixing and matching that with his fastball-sinker combo in the low 90s.

It’s a fine balance to strike. That type of repertoire rarely allows a day of lost command without suffering a number of walks or a few dingers. But for one day, at least, Gonzalez had it all working.

2. We’re not yet to the point of the season where Avisail Garcia’s hot start can be considered more than a hot start, but every day in which he produces is a step toward him shutting everyone up, present company included.

Nine days ago when he was hitting .474 five games into the season, I looked back through five-game samples from a year ago and it didn’t even take me until the end of April to find a streak similar to the one he was on then. I did the same thing following Tuesday’s game and, well, it still didn’t take me until the end of April to find one similar. From April 25 through May 10 of last season, Garcia slashed .439/.489/.732 with two home runs, four walks, and five strikeouts in 47 plate appearances.

What Garcia has shown during this stretch, though, has been impressive. On Tuesday, he yanked one of Luis Severino’s few mistakes, a hanging slider, into the left field seats for a three-run homer that ended up being the difference in the win.

Garcia should get credit for crushing a pitch he should crush — good hitters do that to mistake pitches — but also for selling out and showing off good pull power, something he’s been unable to do with regularity throughout his career.

We’re taking baby steps with Garcia. I don’t know how long it will take for me, personally, to believe his hot streak is going to translate into a full season of success. But any progress is a good thing.

3. Jacob May didn’t play Tuesday, but is now 27 plate appearances into his major league career — 24 at-bats — without a base hit. The streak is the 12th longest hitless streak to start a career in major league history, excluding pitchers. For what it’s worth, May has seemed to be keeping a level head and is saying all the right things despite his struggles.

“If you keep looking at it as a negative, then it’s going to be a negative,” May said. “If you feel like there is no such thing as a negative, you can learn from any experience you are going through. It’s going to make me a better person, a better player, a better teammate. It is what it is. I can’t change those last at-bats. All I can do is show up today, get my work done and give my best effort. At this point, I’m going to keep attacking it.”

The odds of May becoming a major league caliber player were long to begin with, and to say they’ve gotten off to a rough start would be an understatement. In a nut shell, reacting to a 27-plate appearance streak isn’t the wisest decision. But every player is a unique case, and it’s entirely possible May’s lack of success is a sign he can’t hack it as a major leaguer. In fact, one could even say it’s likely that is the case.

4. I’ve repeated it twice in this post alone and many times during the first few weeks, but we’re still several weeks away from individual stats stabilizing to more normal levels, but it’s hard, even now, to ignore the rough starts by Tim Anderson and Jose Abreu.

Abreu went 0-for-4 on Tuesday, including an embarrassing sacrifice bunt attempt he apparently undertook on his own immediately preceding Garcia’s home run, and is now 8-for-51 with one extra-base hit and 14 strikeouts on the season. Anderson, coincidentally, is also 8-for-51 with one extra-base hit, one walk, and 13 strikeouts.

Abreu and Anderson couldn’t be more different in terms of their age, stature, and profile, but each player’s performance is worth monitoring for different reasons. With Abreu, like Garcia, it didn’t take me to the end of April 2016 to find a streak similar to this one, but the fact that he’s an immobile slugger now on the wrong side of 30 and is apparently in his own head enough to attempt something like that bunt provides at least some reason for concern.

Anderson’s case is completely different. The concern for him lies more in the fact that he’s to this point more unproven than proven as a major-league hitter. After a fine rookie season, there remains quite a bit of hope that he’s able to take another step forward in his development with a full season as the team’s starting shortstop, but 430 successful plate appearances does not a star make (Gordon Beckham had one fewer plate appearance than Anderson in his rookie season and a virtually idential OPS+).

Again, not yet time to worry about Abreu nor Anderson, but it’d be pretty cool if either or both broke out of their funks sooner than later.

5. Old friend and compatriot James Fegan has been traipsing about North Carolina all week, getting a first-hand look at the prospects in Winston-Salem and Charlotte. Among his work is a Q&A with Dash manager and the guy who scored the game-winning run in Game 4 of the 2005 World Series, Willie Harris, a look at the progress Zach Collins is making at catcher, and a profile of young outfielder Luis Alexander Basabe. They are worth your time.

Lead Photo Credit: John Rieger-USA TODAY Sports

1. Pretty much all of the action in this game occurred in the second inning, and all with two outs. Pineda retired the first five batters of the night and he fell right into his usual modus operandi: losing command with two outs. A Brett Lawrie single and Dioner Nivarro walk put runners on first and second, and Avisail Garcia drew first blood by hitting an RBI single to left field. The Sox may have been robbed of a run after J.B. Shuck hit a ground rule double (so only one run could come in), but Tim Anderson made that moot as he hit a double to knock in another two. It was such a great at-bat from Anderson; with two strikes, he capitalized on the hanging slider and knocked it down the left field line. The Sox would grab a 4-0 lead after that inning, and they wouldn’t look back.

2. It’s kind of funny that Pineda settled down after that inning, but he did. Nonetheless, the Sox were able to tack on one insurance run in the sixth. Melky Cabrera walked with one out, and Todd Frazier hit a line-drive single that allowed Cabrera to move to third. Lawrie hit a grounder to the left side of the infield, and Didi Gregorius made a wondrous play that fell just short. He dove, made an accurate throw to second, but Starlin Castro bobbled the ball on the transfer to nix the double play.

3. Gonzalez, unlike Pineda, did not have a meltdown inning. In fact, he didn’t really allow much of anything. He allowed just five hits and a walk over seven innings, while striking out three in the process. He only had multiple base runners in the first inning, and he got out of that without a scratch. Every other base runner came isolated within an inning, and he generated weak contact after weak contact. It’s really nice to see that Gonzalez has settled into the back end of the rotation. He now has a 4.39 ERA/4.30 FIP on the year. That’s all you can ask for from non-Chris Sale/Jose Quintana pitchers on this team.

4. The bullpen had an easy time of it to close this one out. Zach Duke allowed a single to Jacoby Ellsbury in the eighth, but nothing else, and then just allowed a single to Brian McCann in the ninth before being replaced by David Robertson with one out. Robertson allowed a single to Castro, but quickly got two quick outs to end things.

5. Winning two out of three against a comparably talented team is a great outcome, and they’ll hopefully carry that momentum to their next series against the Braves, who are currently 28-57. Game one of the series is on Friday; Sale will face Matt Wisler at 7:10 PM CT.

Team record: 44-41

Lead Image Credit: Mike Dinovo // USA Today Sports Images

1. After getting Aroldis Chapman back from suspension for domestic violence earlier this week, the Yankees have been able to deploy their three-headed monster of Andrew Miller, Dellin Bentances, and Chapman for the first time in this series. After striking out eight times in 11 PAs yesterday against the trio, the Sox jumped on Bentances immediately in the seventh, resulting in three-straight hits and a run before the tall right-hander recorded an out. Bentances settled down, however, and the Yankees took the lead in the bottom half of the inning on a Chase Headley RBI double to the wall and never relinquished it again.
2. Miguel Gonzalez showed off both why the Orioles cut him and why the White Sox took a flyer on him Sunday, flashing a good splitter and a newfound cutter early on but losing his command after a trip through the lineup, resulting in a 4.2 IP performance of three earned runs and a ghastly five walks. As soon as Gonzalez’s command dropped a smidge, he was either missing the plate or right down the middle, and actually was lucky that long fly balls with home run distance from Mark Teixeira and Didi Gregorius hooked foul.
3. The White Sox also ended a club-record 12 game errorless streak with gaffes by Brett Lawrie and Alex Avila in late-game situations. Lawrie’s error hurt particularly, as it extended the Yankee half of the sixth to Carlos Beltran, who deposited his 400^th career home run in the left field bleachers against Zach Duke to take a 5-4 lead.
4. The struggles of the White Sox bullpen continued, as they coughed up four runs (three earned) in 3.1 IP. Three of those came on monstrous home runs- the aforementioned Beltran blast allowed by Duke, and a solo home run by Brian McCann in the eighth to give Chapman more runs than he needed.
5. The White Sox return home to face the Houston Astros on Tuesday after tomorrow’s day off. They send Carlos Rodon, Mat Latos, and Chris Sale against a scuffling Astros team. Despite their poor road trip, their division lead sits at 5 over the second-place Indians and 5.5 over the third-place Royals. The White Sox will play 11 straight games against Cleveland and Kansas City after wrapping up their series against Houston.

Team Record: 24-14

Next game is Tuesday vs. Houston at 7:10pm CT on WPWR

Lead Image Credit: Anthony Gruppuso // USA Today Sports Images

1. The Yankees entered the game hitting just .245/.325/.358 against left-handed pitching, so combine that with facing Sale and this is what one would expect. Sale completely mowed down this lineup, allowing just one run on six hits with six strikeouts. His one mistake was to Chase Headley,  who crushed a fastball into the left field seats. It was just his second home run and extra-base hit of the year, and they came on back-to-back days. He is also now 6-for-12 against Sale. Baseball is weird. Sale retired 24 of 28 batters after the Headley home run — including 15 straight at one point — to notch the complete game. He’s good, guys.

2. The offense was clicking, and it was against a pitcher who is at risk of being sent back to Triple-A. The Sox started the scoring in the second after Brett Lawrie led off with a double and Alex Avila knocked him home with a double of how own with one out. Jose Abreu came up with the bases loaded after an Austin Jackson walk and Adam Eaton single, and hit a single that brought in two more.

3. The fatal blows were delivered in the following inning, and it was all with two outs: Avila singled and Jackson walked, then Eaton hit an RBI double after Aaron Hicks ran a terrible route in center field to allow the ball to go over his head. Then Jimmy Rollins hit a two-run moonshot, and Severino was out of the game. The bigger concern for the Yankees, however, is that the 22-year-old gripped his right arm, and now he’s going for an MRI. Yikes. Nonetheless, the White Sox took care of business against a struggling starter. Offenses that want to be above-average need to do that.

4. The offense didn’t hit a lick after the Rollins home run, as Nick Goody, Chasen Shreve, and Kirby Yates tossed six scoreless innings in relief, allowing just two hits and three walks. If there was a time for the Sox offense to go into cruise control, that would be the ideal time.

5. This was an easy victory, one that is welcome after the Sox dropped two of the three to Rangers. We knew going into this series that it would be Sale and Jose Quintana facing a struggling Yankees offense, so taking advantage of that is absolutely necessary if they want to solidify themselves as a top-tier ball club. They did just that. Quintana will go Saturday afternoon at 12:05 p.m. CT; he will take on Ivan Nova, who has a 4.34 ERA on the season.

Team record: 24-12

Lead Photo Credit: Noah K. Murray-USA TODAY Sports