It rained so hard Sunday at Guaranteed Rate Field, the handful of White Sox fans in attendance couldn’t even wear paper bags over their heads. Would the indignities never cease?
But then the ninth inning came and they witnessed a miracle: the preposterously bad Sox, and not the preposterously good Rays, celebrating a victory.
The Sox stormed back with seven ninth-inning runs and won 12-9 on Andrew Vaughn’s towering home run.
Players danced at home plate. Did the clouds lift? Was it morning in Sox-merica? Was that the promised land on the horizon?
“It’s huge,” Vaughn said. “It could be the start of something great.”
Sigh.
But it wasn’t.
The Sox are 8-21, and anyone should be able to see the die is cast. This is a fundamentally unsound team that has the second-worst ERA and the second-worst run differential in all of baseball. The only team that has been worse is the Oakland AAA’s. Come on, triple A’s? Get it? You’re welcome.
Sox fans aren’t finished booing. They aren’t finished chanting, “Sell the team!” Chairman Jerry Reinsdorf has a fan revolt on his hands.
Before the bottom of the ninth, this game looked like rock bottom. Reliever Reynaldo Lopez blew a lead in the eighth and — possibly injured — was booed while walking off the mound with the team’s trainer. Reliever Kendall Graveman entered, gave up a long home run and was booed. In left field, Romy Gonzalez dropped a lazy fly ball and was — you’re not going to believe it — booed.
Same stuff, different day. What would make anyone think any of this is going to stop?
Except this time, the Sox actually didn’t lose. A tip of the paper bag to them and to the few fans who stuck it out until the any-given-Sunday end.
Better save this one for the season highlight reel, though, because there probably won’t be a whole lot more to work with.
THREE-DOT DASH
As dire as things appear to be for the Sox, it’s still going to be fascinating to find out how big a lift shortstop Tim Anderson will give them as he comes off a rehab assignment and returns to the lineup Tuesday against the Twins. The Sox are 5-6 with Anderson this season and 3-15 without him. Since the start of the 2020 campaign, they’re 150-112 (.573) with him and 67-84 (.444) without him. He doesn’t get enough credit for the difference he makes. …
Of all the places for the Cubs to have to go after getting swept in Miami — and, brutally, losing all three games by one run — our nation’s capital for a four-game set against the amateur-hour Nationals is ideal. Shouldn’t every month begin like this? …
It’s still almost mind-boggling how great the Heat’s Jimmy Butler was in the first round against the big, bad Bucks. He averaged 37.6 points in five games and totaled 98 in the last two. He carried his team to back-to-back huge fourth-quarter comebacks. And he’s already up 1-0 on the Knicks in the Eastern Conference semis after a dominant Game 1 performance.
Heat coach Erik Spoelstra called Butler “desperate and urgent and maniacal and sometimes psychotic about the will to try to win. He’ll make everybody in the building feel it. That’s why he is us and we are him.”
Wouldn’t it be something if the Bulls lucked into a guy like that someday? …
NBA second-round winners: Heat over Knicks in six, Celtics over 76ers in seven, Suns over Nuggets in six, Warriors over Lakers in five.
And print it. …
How far has Nebraska’s formerly mighty football program fallen? Look at it this way: Ohio State, the Rolls-Royce of Big Ten football, has had 49 players drafted over the last six years. The Huskers have had 11 — the same number as both Illinois and Northwestern.
THIS YOU GOTTA SEE
Rangers at Devils, Game 7 (7 p.m. Monday, ESPN): New York’s Patrick Kane — remember him? — has a goal and five assists in the series but also a lot of shaky moments. No one is under more pressure to deliver now.
Lakers at Warriors, Game 1 (9 p.m. Tuesday, TNT): For what could be the final time in a postseason series, Steph Curry and LeBron James go nose-to-nose. Well, more like nose-to-chin, but you get the idea.
Kentucky Derby (1:30 p.m. Saturday, Ch. 5): Pretty ironic that the “greatest two minutes in sports” won’t actually come until roughly four and a half hours into this interminable telecast. Please, people, try to pace yourselves with the mint juleps.
ONLY BECAUSE YOU ASKED
From Steve, via Twitter: “Is there anything the Sox could do right now to right the ship?”
Yes, sort of: Play as many games as possible inside the worst division in baseball. That would be the American League Central, lest there be any confusion. Twenty-three of the Sox’ next 29 games are against division foes. The Guardians, Tigers and Royals all have losing records, and the Royals somehow have an even worse mark than the Sox.
But it won’t last. This Sox ship is — even with Anderson, its propeller — post-iceberg.
THE BOTTOM FIVE
The Bucks: “There is no failure in sports,” Giannis Antetokounmpo explained after the title favorites choked, spit the bit, gave up the ghost and wet the bed — all without failing! — against eighth-seeded Miami in the first round.
Sacramento: Remember that one time NBA-loving fans there didn’t have their hearts broken in the end? We don’t, either.
Colorado football: About three dozen Buffs players have entered the transfer portal since the spring game. That’s almost enough to field a second 1-11 team.
Cade Mays: The offensive lineman from Tennessee, taken by the Panthers in the sixth round, already must answer the piercing question asked of everyone drafted 199th since 2000: Why isn’t he as good as Tom Brady?
May: This hotshot new month thinks it’s just going to breeze in and cure what ails the Sox? Even June is laughing.
