First let’s take a look at the play as it unfolded for the first time on the White Sox broadcast.

It’s really hard to see what happens. The one thing that does stand out is Keirmaier overrunning the ball by a long-shot while also looking up into the sky (dome ceiling) wondering where his life had gone wrong. Sanchez pulled into third base, but he was immediately told by third base umpire, Kerwin Danley, that it was a home run.

As Danley signals the home run call, White Sox third base coach Joe McEwing whispers something to Sanchez. What was this something? Who knows. Perhaps it was a private message of adoration or maybe it was just a funny joke. I like to think he was saying, “don’t ask questions just jog home.”

After receiving this advice from McEwing, what is the first thing Sanchez did? Ask questions, of course. If there was a thought bubble on this photo it would say, “wait are you guys sure? Did I really get a home run?”

As Sanchez made his way to the dugout, still confused, Danley wasn’t Kerwinning everyone over with his call on the field. Rays manager Kevin Cash was dumbfounded by the call. One umpire, whom I cannot identify, is pointing towards the cable/wire/catwalk/mysterious U.F.O. that the crew believed the ball hit. Cash is trying to understand but simply looks like he has no idea what they’re talking about. Danley, the one who made the home run call, is giving Cash a look that says, “are you really questioning my judgement?”

Meanwhile, Keirmaier remained in center field still confused as ever. Surely he knew that he had just misplayed the ball so poorly that it soared over his head as his arms flailed in the air. “If they call this a home run everyone will forget about my horrible defensive play,” he must have thought. Kevin, you’re very handsome, but you’re wrong. I will not forget how poorly you judged that ball.

All that was left to do after the review somehow upheld the call was celebrate. Sanchez did so in typical Yolmer Sanchez style, including the whole dugout in his fun. As Hawk would say, “He looks up (in utter confusion), you can put it on the board! Yes! No? Maybe? YES!”

Lead Photo Credit: Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports

Miguel Gonzalez, the former Mexican League hurler who waited until age 28 to make his major league debut, wrapped up a 2016 season Wednesday night that will stand up nicely alongside the best of his career.

1. Improbably sticking through an hour and fourteen-minute rain delay that began in the middle of the bottom of the third inning, Gonzalez spun 8.1 innings of shutout ball in his season finale. The Rays lineup is not the most fearsome in the league, but Gonzalez still nicked the edges of the zone with his fastball and cutter all night, striking out five and walking none. Despite being at the end of the year, Gonzalez touched 93 mph with ease, and breezed through six 1-2-3 innings, only eclipsing 100 pitches in the ninth, and probably only being pulled because the Sox were clinging to a 1-0 lead.

2. That 1-0 lead came from a single swing from Todd Frazier, who launched his 40th home run of the season off a floating knuckleball from Eddie Gamboa in the seventh, continuing the fraught history of Gamboas at U.S. Cellular Field. Gamboa mostly cruised through the three innings of relief he delivered after starter Blake Snell‘s night ended with the rain delay, but ended the night cursing himself because this game had no margin for error.

3. David Robertson came on in the ninth to replace Gonzalez and threw one pitch, and got a game-ending double play for his 37th save. This is good work, the model of efficiency, and everyone should strive to match this production level.

4. Gonzalez’s season wrapped with 135 innings of 3.73 ERA, flashing excellent control and positive adjustment to Don Cooper’s preferred stylings of standing tall and throwing cutters. He’s someone any team would be happy to give a rotation spot, after being on the late-Spring Training waiver wire in March.

5. The Sox have four more games against awful teams, and if they win all of them they will avoid their fourth-straight losing season.

Team Record: 77-81

Next game is Thursday at 7:10pm CT vs. Tampa Bay on CSN

Lead Image Credit: David Banks // USA Today Sports Images

Friday night’s shutout at Tropicana Field found Sale in a different place. He can still rush it up at 96-98 mph, and show a wipeout slider, but he has an eye for the future now, a sense for planning and conservation. He used to be a highlight reel, but Friday night was a complete work, and rather than look at his best moments, it’s the start I most want to rewatch in full. I wish he’d release it on DVD with a commentary track. In lieu of that, we can only try to look back at what on Earth he was doing.

1st Inning:

Sale spends the first inning doing two prominent things: sitting well below his normal velocity on his fastball at 90-92 mph, and pumping it on the outer half to right-handed hitters, and also doing it a lot, if we want to count a third thing.

The process results in some loud outs to right field, but challenging hitters to take him deep to the opposite field on pitches on the outside edge is a bit risk-reduced. He keeps up the same pattern with Evan Longoria — who typically prefers middle-in — even trying to backdoor him with a slider before blowing a 92 mph fastball by him on the outer half for his first strikeout of the night.

That exposes some of the genius of his tapering velocity plan; Sale works so much two-seamer action on his fastball that there’s still swing-and-miss potential at lower velocity.

2nd Inning:

By now, the first countermove has begun, not even one time through the order. Sale is still holding back velocity — his first pitch challenge to Steve Pearce is 89 mph down the pipe — and he starts the same way against Desmond Jennings before throwing one of his first changeups of the night. It’s not a great change, since it stays up enough for Jennings to poke it out to center for one of two hits the Rays collected all game, but it foreshadows the knot Steven Souza gets tied into.

After showing fastballs on the outer half in the first inning, Sale’s first pitch change in that location fools Souza, who barely taps it foul, then he follows it up by busting a fastball on the inside corner that Souza isn’t ready to tuck in his hands and turn on. When the third pitch is a looping slider high and outside, Souza’s timing is so banjaxed he’s actually late on something under 80 mph.

3rd Inning:

When the bottom of the order comes up, Sale gets less cagey on location, and tries more to get through while holding out at least one of his pitches entirely.

Kevin Keirmaier is the rare lefty left in to face the Sale meatgrinder, but is unsurprisingly unable to do much with six straight fastballs all over the place, though it’s notable that Sale cranks it up to 98 mph the first time. Light-hitting catcher Curtis Casali gets low fastballs he can’t put in play until getting blown away by the trademark hard slider in to right-handers that he has been hurting the league with for four years.

His second time up, Forsythe is still aggressively offering at another lower velocity fastball Sale is putting in the middle of zone for him, but can’t do anything with beyond bounce it to first. Sinking two-seamer action, more groundballs and less pitches was said to be a focus going into the year, and pounding the bottom of the zone with his two-seamer is how he can make that switch.

4th Inning:

The way Chris Sale’s double-digit strikeout streak ended last summer was because the Blue Jays essentially willed it to end. After watching him vaporize batters with unhittable stuff in two-strike counts, the Blue Jays swung early and often. It didn’t really work — Sale threw a complete game and the Sox won 4-2 — but the strikeout streak died and it altered the doomed calculus into something that shifted the emphasis on the Sox defense; a typically more vulnerable element.

Maybe the Rays felt similarly, since the top of the order remained content to chase whenever Sale offered them something in the strike zone early in the count. Brandon Guyer hacked at both changeups Sale offered, and Longoria bounced the first pitch he saw — a low 90 mph fastball splitting the zone — to third. Sale went back to staying away from Pearce, but once his slider even clipped the outer edge of the zone, he chased and flipped a weak fly to center.

5th Inning: 

After allowing Jennings to stay aggressive and get himself out on 92 mph fastballs on the outer edge, Sale noted Souza’s discomfort with his slider the first time through the order and threw him three more. After looking confused at the first offering, Souza was actually right on a 90 mph fastball down the pipe and just fouled it back, but was helpless when Sale switched back. A bender hard inside sent Souza back to the dugout cursing to himself.

After getting 95 mph upstairs to start off, Tim Beckham was happy to track a slower slider, and made good contact on a liner out to left, but still had to reach too much to get a real power swing on it.

These middle innings might have secretly served as the backbreaker for the Rays. There were only a handful of hittable pitches, but the failure to immediately convert on them allowed Sale to get through both frames in 13 pitches and have steam left for the later innings.

6th Inning: 

Brad Miller, in the game as a substitution after a scary collision between Forsythe and Keirmaier forced both from the game, had the typical lefty experience vs. Sale. He saw only fastball and sliders, let a 95 mph heater spilt the plate on him on a hitter’s count without even flinching at it — as if he never got a good look at it — and wound up pushing a slurvy looper on the outer half weakly to short.

If that approach seemed kind of generic, Casali saw one of Sale’s biggest mistakes. After starting him off with changeups downstairs that didn’t draw offers, Sale tried to go upstairs with fastball, but winds up going belt-high on the inner half with 92 mph. It’s possibly the first run of the game if he throws it to someone other than the catcher out of the nine-hole, but instead it’s a flyout to left field that leaves Casali cursing to himself.

Corey Dickerson, who was also an injury replacement who originally sat to avoid Sale, looked like a guy in a terrible matchup while he was taking impossible sliders on the outside corner early, or barely clipping a 95 mph fastball upstairs. But with nothing to live for at 0-2 against the worst matchup in baseball, he got a hanging slider that he crushed to the warning track, which doubled as the best contact anyone made on the slider all game.

Adam Eaton‘s running catch wound up being the defensive highlight of the evening, and seemingly every shutout has one, but it’s worth nothing here that another pitcher probably starts getting watched closely after this or placed on a short leash. It’s six innings on a low pitch count, but Sale had just made two bad, seemingly unforced mistakes. Unless he’s coming apart at the seams, though, there’s no reliever who engenders more confidence  than Sale on the Sox pitching staff, even in short bursts.

7th Inning:

With his third trip through the top of the order on tap, Sale begins ramping things up, velocity-wise. He throws 96 mph in the upper half of the zone to strike out Guyer, and steps up to 93 mph to Longoria, even if it’s in between changeups to use the aggression in Longoria he fostered earlier in the game.

The increased velocity doesn’t mean much to Pearce, who had been in swing-mode in every plate appearance, and laced a 93 mph heater on the inner half to left field for the second and last hit of the game.

In back-to-back plate appearances, the natural swing-and-miss ability from Sale’s sinking action crops up against Jennings, who somehow swings over a 91 mph fastball thigh-high and on the inner half, then weakly grounds a second one to short, reaching on a Jimmy Rollins throwing error. Souza, who has spent the whole night baffled by Sale’s slider, all of sudden gets 97 mph over and over for four pitches, before one-last hard-and-in slider caps a three-strikeout day.

8th Inning: 

In the eighth, after Beckham led off by flying out on a slider down broadway to right, Sale began toying with dramatically different fastballs mid-at-bat.

He started Miller off in the high-80s both outside, then in, before rushing 95 up and in, and finishing him off by placing a 92 mph heater with tons of sink inside and under his hands in a spot that couldn’t show up on any possible swing path. Casasli watched Sale bounce between 90 and 95 mph versions enough times that when he split the plate with a slider through the back door, he just stared helplessly at it.

9th Inning: 

By the end, Sale’s command has reached the point where the hope is that his stuff is still too lively to be punished even if it’s in the wrong location, and since he’s still touching 95 mph and just broached 100 pitches, that hope is largely being fulfilled.

For the second time, Sale’s matchup with Dickerson looks like one that would prompt Rays manager Kevin Cash to sit his power hitting outfielder — Dickerson winds up having to drop to one knee just to pop a slider off the roof of the dome, but still ends with Sale floating him a cookie that he lines out to short.

At least that was on the outer-half. Guyer might have gotten Sale’s worst pitch of the night: a 91 mph fastball in a spot to crush thigh-high and on the inner-third and drove it to the wall, where Melky Cabrera had to make an interesting catch.

But on his final out, Sale looked to be executing a plan again. Facing Longoria for the fourth time, he went back to baiting him to dive over the plate to chase fastballs off the edge and weakly fly out to right.

In sum:

Sale’s saving himself more to last deeper into games, but the payoffs are multifold. By working the bottom and edges of the zone with an easier-to-touch version of his two-seam fastball, he’s providing something to put in play to generate easy outs on the ground. The strategy keeps his pitch count down, but also creates more separation with his top velocity, which he can tap into when needed in later innings.

He should continue to have opportunities to use it and prove this method works, since his reputation as a high-strikeout, extreme-control monster has taken away most incentive to wait him out for a mistake to drive. If he’s going to put something in the zone for hitters to offer at, they’ll take it.

It’s just one start, after two outings where Sale was seemingly struggling to just maintain rather than spin a lineup around his finger. But there’s diminishing returns from trying to blow everyone away with elite stuff, and at this point, the threat of what he can do when he reaches back is just as potent as what he actually does.

To be more fair to the White Sox cold bats, Sunday’s loss wrapped a series where they scored five runs total, and were a Chris Sale violin solo from being swept by the Rays.

1. Jose Quintana had a down start. Every now and then pounding his fastball at low-90s isn’t paired with invincible command, and when he can’t get his breaking stuff over, as was the case when he was giving up three-straight ropes to Logan Forsythe, Brandon Guyer and Evan Longoria to start a rough third inning in which the Rays staked themselves to a 3-1 lead.

The good news is that he stabilized, settled down and still delivered six innings with only the three runs allowed, and saved his ERA because only two of those were earned.

The bad news is that run was unearned because Quintana himself picked up an error when his foot missed the bag on what would have been an inning-ending groundout to first.

And then that was the difference in the game.

2. Baseball fans will be happy to know that Matt Moore‘s arm and stuff look lively again, and he announced his return with authority Sunday by striking out seven in his first four innings of work, and 10 overall with a surprising absence of walks over six and a third strong innings.

White Sox fans were probably less happy to see a guy with below average control before Tommy John surgery blow through the lineup without much effort, only yielding runs on an Austin Jackson jamshot RBI single in the third, and a Avisail Garcia RBI knock up the middle when he ran out of gas in the seventh.

Overlaps between these two groups probably found themselves very torn.

3. The Sox 3-4-5 hitters went 0-for-11 with nine strikeouts on the day, which depending on your level of baseball expertise, it is either my duty to inform you this is actually very bad, or you do not need the explanation and just started emanating a deep guttural moan while gripping your knees and rocking back and forth upon reading the previous clause.

Todd Frazier, the one true offensive stud acquired in the offseason, is now 2-for-20 with nine strikeouts over his last five games. Jerry Sands got his second start of the year and batted fifth against a left-hander, and now he’s struck out in six of 10 trips to the plate. Got that one dinger, though.

4. On a positive note, Brett Lawrie continued his hot series, collecting two more hits and a run after hitting a ball to Jupiter on Saturday. He went 5-for-12 in Tampa with two runs and two RBI to put his season line to .303/.333/.435. Since the criteria for No. 2 hitters so far has been ‘smallish, fast guy who doesn’t feel like a natural middle-of-the-order hitter,’ maybe he’ll work his way up in the mix.

Zach Duke had his first very good outing of the year, striking out two–including a right-hander–over a perfect inning of work.

5. Dioner Navarro continued to sparkle with his defensive throws, picking off Logan Morrison at first to end Quintana’s jam in the third and gunning down Guyer trying to steal second in the eighth. Between his arm and the rave reviews he’s gotten for his receiving, he’d be claiming the primary catcher role as his own if he could ever get a hit.

Team Record: 8-4

Next game is Monday at 7:10pm CT vs. the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim on CSN.

Lead Photo Credit: Kim Klement // USA Today Sports Images

John Danks is the only Sox starter not already in possession of a good start. In just one opportunity, this is forgivable. His turn in the rotation may have been shuffled thanks to the combination of a postponement and a scheduled day off, but he came in as the fifth starter, and will remain so in title, and more than likely in performance. He’s never going to be the pitcher he was before his shoulder fell apart on him, but as is frequently stated, he’s not without use.

His first start, which unfortunately for public perception of him came on the home opener, didn’t yield pretty results. He gave up five runs in five innings and the Sox ended up doing very little in run support anyway; in a vacuum they lose that game if Danks does anything but toss a shutout. But on the positive end, he struck out six batters and he only walked one. The ball stayed in the park, and he didn’t issue free passes. He spent much of 2015 on a boom or bust plan, occasionally rolling out starts that a fifth starter has no business producing, putting us in a position now to sit back and hope that he finds that level again sooner rather later.

Erasmo Ramirez has never been particularly good, typically starting but also flexing into the bullpen regularly in his career. He’ll be making his first start of the season today after having made three relief appearances already on the young year. He throws many pitches, mainly relying on a sinker, particularly when working out of the pen. He’s got a four-seamer he hasn’t used a ton this year, but will probably flash much more often, perhaps even using as his go-to pitch in what he hopes will be a long outing today. Right-handed batters tend to hit him better, and the White Sox are basically a right-handed lineup. Perhaps more than one run can be produced in this contest.

After an evening of nearly no run production from either side, the pitching matchup tonight producing similar results to Friday night’s Chris Sale gem is highly improbable. Jimmy Rollins was the offensive hero yesterday, with a pair of hits and manufacturing the game-winning run with heads up baserunning. Melky Cabrera continues to swing a hot bat, adding two hits of his own.

White Sox Lineup:

1. Adam Eaton – RF
2. Jimmy Rollins – SS
3. Jose Abreu – 1B
4. Todd Frazier – 3B
5. Melky Cabrera – LF
6. Brett Lawrie – 2B
7. Avisail Garcia – DH
8. Alex Avila – C
9. Austin Jackson – CF

Rays Lineup:

1. Brandon Guyer – CF
2. Steve Pearce – 1B
3. Evan Longoria – 3B
4. Corey Dickerson – DH
5. Desmond Jennings – LF
6. Steven Souza Jr. – DH
7. Brad Miller – SS
8. Tim Beckham – 2B
9. Curt Casali – C

Lead Photo Credit: Jayne Kamin-Oncea – USA Today Sports Images

1. Sitting in the low-90s and daring the Rays’ hitters to jump out across dish and try to drive fastballs on the outer edge, Sale looked like he was playing possum for the first inning or two, showing hitters a lower velocity and different looks, and then popping in some of his off-speed pitches once he got hitters to be over-aggressive.

Except, that would be an oversimplification. Sale didn’t spin a two-hit shutout on a 106 pitches on a simple set up and countermove. Plus, save for some lively flyouts in the first, it’s not like Rays hitters looked anymore comfortable with him sitting 91 mph than 96. There was too much sink and movement

He switched speeds and eye levels, swapped slurves and sliders and looked in control of his actions rather than the overthrowing and straining that slightly marred his Opening Day start’s worst stretches. Friday night’s Sale gem wasn’t built on speed, but was long on comfort.

2. Nine shutout innings dropped Sale’s ERA to a suddenly very characteristic 2.35, which is still higher than the White Sox as a team over their 8-2 start of smothering out bad offenses. Striking out nine over his complete game, Sale outdueled Tampa’s Jake Odorizzi, who twirled seven shutout innings of his own, despite giving up some loud contact early

Just for emphasis, annihilating weak offenses and weak teams has value, because that’s how playoff-caliber clubs build their bids. Teams of the Royals, Dodgers, Cubs caliber, you can never ask much more than to play them to a draw. To win 90 games, the Sox need to expose and exploit the weaknesses of the deeply flawed opponents they’re fortunate enough to draw.

Similarly, while Sox pitching is just shutting down weak hitting clubs early on, that’s necessary with an offense that looks like it could be very inconsistent until improvements are made. The Sox are possibility still in extras if Sale isn’t completely unstoppable and dictating the nature of every inning. Dominance rather than simply success over bad lineups has real value.

3. Around the time Jimmy Rollins was bouncing a routine throw to first in the seventh inning and extending a mild Rays scoring threat, he didn’t look like someone who needed to be starting at shortstop on a regular basis.

Naturally, he turned it around and wound up being the hero. After getting stranded on second in the first, Rollins worked twice as hard to find his way back and was rewarded for it in the ninth. He led off the final frame with a sinking liner that Desmond Jennings trapped for a single to left, and caught the Rays’ defense napping when he took off on a Todd Frazier flyout to deep right center and claimed second base with two outs.

Because the Rays were weirdly willing to let Alex Colome face the left-handed Melky Cabrera with first base open, that extra base paid immediate dividends when a hot grounder snuck under Steve Pearce‘s glove at first and plated Rollins for the only run of the game. That’s just veteran leadership right there. Tyler Saladino would have probably checked snapchat halfway to second.*

4. With two more hits, Cabrera is now up to a .390 OBP on the season, despite not really having any power. If the Sox were too power and strikeout heavy with their offseason additions to the offense, Cabrera is the tonic, and should be embraced as such

5. A fan was hurt behind the plate by a foul ball off the bat of Steven Souza in the seventh inning. By all appearances and reports, the foul snuck through a gap in the netting–estimated at the width of a one and a half baseballs–made for photographers. The woman struck appeared to be conscious and responsive, but also possibly suffering from an eye injury. Our best wishes are with her and her family.

It’s unclear whether this is cause for further scrutiny on safety netting behind the plate, or just such an improbable awful event that it might never be duplicated.

Team Record: 8-2

Next game is at 5:10pm CT at Tampa on WGN for TV and WLS for radio.

*He would not, for the record.

Lead Photo Credit: Rick Scuteri // USA Today Sports Images

Four years ago Chris Sale made the leap from the bullpen to the starting rotation. It was met with mixed expectations. His build and his delivery were leading the way as ready-made points of blame for his failure. At that particular time, teams were opting to keep their explosive young arms in the bullpen even when they originally had designs on starting. While the Aroldis Chapmans and Neftali Felizes of the world were being safely stashed for use in short bursts, Sale and the White Sox would take a chance on upside.

I don’t need to remind you that it was the right choice: we’ve all been watching Sale dominate since. But when it was still in question, a start against the Tampa Bay Rays at Tropicana Field made believers out of many, and provided a fun Chris Sale moment for us all as he struck out 15 while yielding only three hits and a single run, and every bit of which was needed as the Sox edged out a 2-1 win. In his two other starts in Tampa he allowed two earned runs each, and struck out 12 and nine batters respectively. The White Sox lost both of those games. We’ve yet to see Chris Sale bust out dominating stuff so far in 2016, yet he’s racked up 14 strikeouts and paved the way to victory in each of his starts. When “just out here getting the feel” Chris Sale is striking out a batter per inning, and going seven innings in outings, a re-visitation of his first Tropicana start doesn’t seem like a stretch.

Jake Odorizzi’s big league arrival was certainly less anticipated. The Illinois-native arrived in Tampa by being a small piece in two large trades. He was part of the package that netted Milwaukee Zack Greinke prior to the 2011 season, and two winters later was part of the infamous, if fluidly named, “James Shields trade.” Odorizzi has been slightly above average in his first full two seasons pitching for the Rays. His splitter usage has been consistent, thrown about half as much as his four-seamer, and while last season he scrapped his slider in favor of increasing the use of a two-seam fastball, his first two starts in 2016 have shown him dialing that two-seamer back and mainly replacing it with a cutter, which he’s thrown over 10 percent of the time. The change in pitch selection won’t mean much to the Sox hitters as nobody’s faced him much. Melky Cabrera has seen him just nine times and he’s the most experienced.

Cabrera is the latest cog in the White Sox lineup to kick into gear and present some offensive production that one can be proud of. After a slow start, Melky has collected two hits in each of his last four games, slapping an extra .160 on to his OPS. On a Rollins off day, Ventura even elected to bat Melky second in the lineup on Thursday, which would be preferred by most of the analytically-driven Sox population, however with Jimmy back tonight he’s reverted back to puting the aging “bat-handler” near the top of the lineup.

The Rays offensive production has come from unsurprising sources. Evan Longoria, Steven Souza, and the recently acquired Corey Dickerson have all hit for some power in the young season.

White Sox Lineup:

1. Adam Eaton – RF
2. Jimmy Rollins – SS
3. Jose Abreu – 1B
4. Todd Frazier – 3B
5. Melky Cabrera – LF
6. Brett Lawrie – 2B
7. Avisail Garcia – DH
8. Alex Avila – C
9. Austin Jackson – CF

Rays Lineup:

1. Logan Forsythe – 2B
2. Brandon Guyer – RF
3. Evan Longoria – 3B
4. Steve Pearce – 1B
5. Desmond Jennings – LF
6. Steven Souza Jr. – DH
7. Tim Beckham – SS
8. Kevin Kiermaier – CF
9. Curt Casali – C

Lead Photo Credit: Matt Marton – USA Today Sports Images