White Sox Cleverly Lull Yankees Into False Sense Of Superiority In Potential Playoff Preview

Nobody told me that becoming a fan of the Chicago White Sox meant that I would have to suffer humiliating losses!

Wait. Actually, everybody told me that. But I didn't listen. I arrived at Yankee Stadium for the first game of the White Sox series, full of optimism. Even if the star sluggers, Aaron Judge and Munetaka Murakami, were out injured, we were still getting a treat of a pitching matchup: Chicago's breakout potential Cy Young candidate Davis Martin, and New York's recently reconstructed ace Gerrit Cole. I expected a tight, low-scoring game that the White Sox would pull out because they were fun, and because they'd just handled both the Dodgers and Braves last week.

Instead, I hear they're still finding scraps of Martin's uniform scattered amid the abandoned French fries in the bleachers, after the Yanks blasted Chicago 12-2. The Sox ace seemed his normal self in the top of the first, surrendered a solo home run to Spencer Jones in the second, and then in the third looked like he was pitching with a 50-pound weight on his back. He walked three guys as the Yanks scored four runs, and when Will Venable made the decision to bring Martin back out for the fourth, it was a free-for-all. Martin's final line was 3.1 innings with eight hits and nine earned runs, mercifully exiting the game only after Paul Goldschmidt banged one into left for his 382nd career dong.