Normally: Two runs over six innings would put a pitcher in line for a win. Not tonight. (Clinton Cole/South Side Hit Pen)
White Sox starting pitcher Lucas Giolito was not as brilliant as he was last week against the Minnesota Twins.
But he certainly did enough to put the Chicago White Sox in a winning position tonight.
Giolito followed up his shutout of the Twins with a six-inning performance tonight. He gave up just two solo home runs, to Marwin Gonzalez and Jonathan Schoop in the second inning.
That was it. The White Sox bats were stone cold, resulting in a 3-1 loss.
Minnesota is at the top of the league in just about every offensive category, so Giolito’s recent run against these Twinkies is impressive. Giolito also notched his 200th strikeout of the year. It’s truly amazing how far he has come in such a short time. Congrats, Lucas!
What about the offense? Not a lot there tonight.
Tim Anderson hit a solo shot off Twins starting pitcher Michael Pineda in the fourth inning.
Matt Skole pinch-hit for Adam Engel in bottom of the seventh and chased ball four on a 3-2 count. Twins’ reliever Tyler Duffey got some good late movement on the pitch, but Skole reaching would have been nice, especially because two runners were on. Leury García lined out one batter later.
Josh Osich entered the game after Evan Marshall got the first out of the eighth inning and gave up a single. That was the only hitter Osich faced tonight. In came Kelvin Herrera, who coughed up that inherited run on an Eddie Rosario single up the middle.
The White Sox bats would go quietly the rest of the way. Sergio Romo went 1-2-3 in the eighth, and Taylor Rogers did the same in the ninth.
You can file this one away under “Good Signs for 2020.” The Sox have played a good amount of close games this year, thanks to progressions from players who will be around for a long time (hopefully).
Jason Benetti and Steve Stone had some good conversations tonight about the future — when they weren’t dodging foul balls in the booth. They said at this point next year, there is a good chance you’ll see Giolito, Michael Kopech, Reynaldo López, Dylan Cease and Carlos Rodón in the starting rotation. That’s not bad, and that’s without any free agent signing (insert Rick Hahn joke here).
That talk certainly keeps me listening until the end, and hopefully it does for other Sox fans.
Ross Detwiler gets the start for the Sox tomorrow, while Jake Odirizzi starts for the Twins. Joe Resis is on the SSHP coverage.
South Side Hit Pen 
Pitching isn’t the only area where off season improvement is needed, the offense is inconsistent and sporadic at best. Far to many strikeouts, far to little walks, far to many guys with low batting averages which means the odds of stringing together three-four-five hits in a row to produce runs is smaller and harder to come by.Tonight was the 60th time in 131 games the Sox scored three runs or less…that’s 46% of their games. Really hard to consistently win that way.
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I think you meant Osich faced 1 batter. Herrera is unbelievably bad.
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And remember Rick Hahn signed him to a two year deal. More wasted money by this G.M.
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He did outstanding on McCann and Colome. Even Goins helped a bit. The others like Alonso and Jay in the quixotic chase were negatives.
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Every time I see Herrera enter a game now I’m overcome by the need to issue a small, sad, pathetic sigh of resignation.
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