Sports
Yankees pummeled by historically bad White Sox in embarrassing loss
CHICAGO — Nobody would call the Yankees an unstoppable force, but they certainly ran into an immovable object on Monday night.
The result? Helping the White Sox in their quest to avoid infamy.
A blowout may have been expected in a game pitting the team that came into the night tied for the best record in baseball against the team that had the majors’ worst record (by 16 games) and was trying to avoid company with the 120-loss, 1962 Mets.
But it was the White Sox doing the drubbing, handing the Yankees an embarrassing 12-2 loss in front of 22,815 at Guaranteed Rate Field.
The Yankees (70-50) wasted plenty of prime chances early to do damage — on the way to going 2-for-18 with runners in scoring position and stranding 16 men on base — while the White Sox (29-91) pounded out 18 hits for a season-high 12 runs.
“Yeah, they’re one of the worst teams, if you want to put it that way, but these guys are still big leaguers,” said Alex Verdugo, who sabotaged a potential rally in the fourth inning when he popped out on a bunt attempt with two on and no outs. “They can still have days where they’re clicking. … We just got to do a better job of coming out and cashing in those runs we had on base. Step on them early. With them getting out of those jams, we gave them a little bit of momentum and they ran with it today.”
Luis Gil labored through four innings, needing 98 pitches to record 12 outs (on a night when the bullpen was already thin) while allowing four runs as he struggled with his execution.
The White Sox later broke the game open in the seventh inning when they scored seven runs off Enyel De Los Santos to give their fans a rare night to enjoy.
“Every time you lose is a missed opportunity — we’re playing for a lot every freakin’ day,” manager Aaron Boone said. “So it sucks to lose. Really good, exhilarating when you win. But either way, you turn the page. The bottom line is credit to them — everything they hit tonight was a hit. I thought we played hard. … We just couldn’t punch through, we didn’t hit the ball out of the ballpark and we couldn’t stop them.”
To add injury to insult, Jazz Chisholm Jr. left the game in the seventh inning with a left elbow injury from diving head-first into home plate on what was otherwise the Yankees’ highlight of the night.
Chisholm will undergo an MRI exam on Tuesday.
Most of the Yankees’ best chances came early against White Sox rookie left-hander Ky Bush — the latest southpaw to stifle Boone’s lineup.
Bush walked seven batters and gave up six hits across 4 ²/₃ innings, but squeaked by with only two runs allowed.
After Verdugo and Juan Soto walked to lead off the game, Aaron Judge put the Yankees up 1-0 with an RBI double.
But Bush avoided further damage by getting Giancarlo Stanton, Austin Wells and Gleyber Torres each to pop up on a combined six pitches.
In the second inning, Bush walked Verdugo to load the bases with one out, but then got Soto to pop out and Judge to fly out to the warning track — a few feet shy of what would have been a grand slam for career homer No. 300 — to end the threat.
Bush invited trouble again in the fourth by walking Anthony Volpe and DJ LeMahieu.
But Verdugo popped out bunting before Soto got robbed of a hit on a diving stop by first baseman Gavin Sheets.
“He made a pitch up and in that I didn’t really want to bunt, but was already kind of out there and just got a little lazy with it and popped it up,” Verdugo said.
The White Sox then intentionally walked Judge to load the bases with two outs, which worked perfectly as Bush got Stanton to strike out on three pitches to get out of the jam.
For the second straight start, Gil struggled with an elevated pitch count. He threw 34 pitches in the first inning alone while handing the White Sox a 2-1 lead before they made it 4-1 in the fourth inning.
Chisholm scored from second — and got injured — on an infield single by Volpe in the top of the fifth to make it 4-2, but that was as close as the Yankees would get.
“There are good days and bad days,” Gil said through an interpreter, “and today was not a good day for us overall.”
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