White Sox 3, Mariners 2 (10 innings): Sweepless in Seattle
South Siders avoid dropping full series thanks to gem from Crochet — but just barely
Man, I had a whole-ass lede set up for Garrett Crochet and the incredible outing he had. It was a really great lede, too. Instead I get to show you my vulnerable side, via self-explanatory internal Slack screenshot:
If it’s not self-explanatory, it will be after this. It’s a video of Michael Kopech throwing a fastball with a one-run lead in the ninth. You can probably guess what happens.
But after the deflating bottom-of-ninth lost lead and against all odds, the Sox managed to get their ghost runner across the plate in the 10th inning, and against all the odds plus whatever comes after all, Tanner Banks stranded Seattle’s counterpart in scoring position and secured the extra-inning win for the South Siders.
The lede that was going to be the lede, and should spiritually still be the lede, is that Garrett Crochet threw an unadulterated nine-level-deep hell of an outing, setting a new career with 13 punchouts over seven one-run innings, coming a telegraphed Kopech fastball away from picking up his seventh win of the season. Seattle starter Emerson Hancock battled valiantly, and the two mistakes he made on solo home runs to Andrew Vaughn and Luis Robert Jr. were almost all it took to hand him the loss despite allowing little else.
The story of the night is, of course, Crochet. It’s the fifth time in just a half-season that the big lefty has reached double-digit strikeouts, and while Chris Sale’s 13 double-digit K games in 2015 is a team record unlikely to fall anytime soon, the second-place number of eight, shared by Sale in 2014 and Dylan Cease in 2021 — yes, 2021, not 2022, interestingly — seems as if it might be in danger before rosters expand.
Just as impressive as the strikeouts themselves is the 24 swings-and-misses induced by the 2020 first-rounder, which moves into a three-way tie for the second-highest total for a pitcher in ANY game this year, just one behind the 25 that Jared Jones of Pittsburgh picked up back in April.
What’s utterly fascinating is that despite the strikeouts and whiffs, Crochet did it all without the slider that wowed us both at his first callup in 2020 and at the beginning of this season. For the first time all year, he didn’t throw a single slide-piece, relying entirely on his four-seamer and the cutter he introduced earlier this year, which has emerged out of nowhere to become one of the game’s most effective breaking pitches. It’s a lot faster than the slider and moves a lot less, which I would guess means that a) he has a better feel for locating it than he does his slider, and b) it tunnels better and separates less from his fastball, making it harder for hitters to tell what’s coming and square everything up.
Just from pitch usage numbers that don’t include tonight, we can see pretty clearly what happened. He hesitated to break the pitch out too often early in the season, but once he felt comfortable enough to let it take a lead role, it gave him the full arsenal he needs to be a long-term starter in the majors. The big jump in separation between the cutter and the slider usage coincides nearly perfectly with the start of what is now EIGHT consecutive quality starts for the lefthander.
Let’s watch a few punchies with that cutter:
Ain’t that fun? And when Crochet doesn’t have a feel for the cutter, well, the slider will still be there! If you weren’t completely sold on him already, you should be by now.
The Sox travel down from the top border to near the bottom one for tomorrow’s 8:40 p.m. CT start time against the Diamondbacks in Phoenix. Chris Flexen takes the ball against Ryne Nelson, and we’ll see you there!
Futility Watch
White Sox 2024 Record 18-52, worst 70-game start in White Sox history (5 games ahead of the next-worst, 1929 and 1934 White Sox) and tied for the seventh-worst start in MLB history
White Sox 2024 Run Differential -149, tied for 24th-worst 70-game start in MLB history
White Sox 2024 Season Record Pace 42-120 (.257)
Race to the Worst “Modern” 162-Game Record (2003 Tigers, 43-119) 1 game ahead
Race to the Worst “Modern” Record in a 162-Game Season (1962 Mets, 40-120) 1 game behind
Race to the Most White Sox Losses (1970, 106) 14 games ahead
Race to the Worst White Sox Record (1932, 52-109-1*) 10 1⁄2 games ahead
Race to the Worst American League Record (1916 A’s, 38-124*) 4 games behind
*record adjusted to a 162-game season