[jksander]

May 16, 2025: Winners of our last three series, our White Sox are 8-6 so far this May, and we’ve won four of our last five and eight of our last 11 games, while the Cubs come into this series having lost five of their last six after winning five in a row early this month. Ryan Weber (2-3, 2.53 ERA, 42.2 IP, 27 K’s, 0.96 WHIP) pitched against Matthew Boyd (2-3, 4.44 ERA, 46.2 IP, 54 K’s, 1.37 WHIP) in game one, and Miguel Vargas hit a solo homer in the top of the second to give us an early lead! But the Cubs tied it up in the bottom of the third with an RBI single by Ian Happ as this one started to heat up. Weber loaded the bases in the fifth but didn’t concede a run, and we got the lead back in the top of the sixth with a three-run double by Tauchman! Craig Kimbrel took over in the bottom of the inning, and with two outs he gave up a two-run homer out of right by Carson Kelly to cut our lead to one run. Martin Perez came out and got us into the seventh, but the Cubs tied it in the bottom of the inning with a triple by Hoerner, though we were able to keep it tied heading into the top of the eighth. Our bats awoke again in a big way in the top of the eighth, Tauchman scoring the go-ahead on a double by Vargas, Sosa hitting an RBI single, and Jorge Alfaro batting in Gallo and Sosa with an RBI double to put us up 8-4! Shane Smith came out in the bottom of the inning and if you liked runs, this game was the one for you -- Eduardo Escobar hit a solo homer to cut the lead to three, and Kyle Tucker hit a sac-fly to right, driving in Happ to get them within a pair. Justin Dunn took over with two outs and struck out Seiya Suzuki swinging, and we got one of the runs back to go into the bottom of the ninth leading by three and just needing to CLOSE IT OUT ... and with two outs, Escobar tripled in two runs to cut the lead to one, with Happ at the plate. Jesus ... but Dunn got Happ to ground out to first and we escaped with a 9-8 win in an absolutely insane game at Wrigley.

Martin Perez blew his first save, but came out of this one with the win, improving to 3-1 with a 4.99 ERA, allowing two hits, two walks, a strikeout and an earned run in his 1.1 innings. Dunn, meanwhile, got his first save with 1.1 innings and two hits, two walks, two strikeouts and two earned runs, living on the edge as his ERA remains a tenuous 6.41. The Cubs outhit us 12-10 but we managed to pull it off, something that would NOT have happened a month ago. Vargas led the way with three hits, a walk, two runs and three RBIs, giving him 25 runs batted in this year, and Alfaro did well in the nine spot, hitting three times for a run and two batted in.

May 17, 2025: Sean Burke (1-5, 5.17 ERA, 40.0 IP, 41 K’s, 1.30 WHIP) got the start in game two against Ben Brown (1-3, 5.15 ERA, 43.2 IP, 37 K’s, 1.60 WHIP). We took the lead with an RBI single by Dominic Fletcher with one out in the top of the fourth, adding on with an RBI single by Otto Lopez and a sac-fly by Chase Meidroth to go up 3-0 midway through the inning. Penn Murfee came out with two outs and Gage Workman on first in the bottom of the sixth, catching Workman trying to steal second and keeping our three-run shutout lead into the seventh. Joey Gallo hit a two-run homer to add on, but Murfee blew the shutout in the bottom of the inning with a one-out RBI double by Suzuki. Meidroth hit an RBI single in the top of the eighth, and Kimbrel took over for Murfee with two outs in the bottom of the inning ... with three more runs scoring for us in the top of the ninth, he stayed out there and shut them down the rest of the way as we blew the Cubs out 9-1, guaranteeing us a fourth straight series win. Burke improved to 2-5 with a 4.53 ERA, pitching 5.2 innings with two hits, a walk and seven K’s. Murfee earned his second hold with a two inning effort, allowing a hit, a walk, a strikeout and an unearned run as his ERA improved to 5.25. We outhit them 11-4, led by Fletcher with three hits, two runs and two RBIs while Lenyn Sosa put up two hits and scored three runs.
 
May 18, 2025: We’ve now won four games in a row and have our chance for our first series sweep of the season, and against our crosstown rivals to boot! Trevor Bauer (0-3, 5.40 ERA, 30.0 IP, 32 K’s, 1.47 WHIP) got the start against Justin Steele (3-3, 3.61 ERA, 62.1 IP, 57 K’s, 1.19 WHIP). The Cubs took the lead in the bottom of the first with a solo homer by Kyle Tucker, his ninth of the season, and they added a run in the third with an RBI double by Hoerner. The Cubs scored two more in the fifth, leading 4-0 as we came up to hit in the sixth, and Justin Dunn took over in the bottom of the inning still trailing by the same margin. Pete Crow-Armstrong hit one out of right to make it 5-0 in the bottom of the inning, and Noah Perez pitched the rest of the game as we lost this one 5-1. We’re improving, but this game showcased that we don’t need to start getting full heads yet. Bauer took the loss again, falling to 0-4 with a 5.66 ERA after allowing five hits, three walks and four runs with five strikeouts in his five innings. They outhit us 7-4 and had two homers, while our only run was scored by Meidroth (two hits, one run) off a single with two outs in the bottom of the ninth by Joey Gallo.

We’ll return to our side of town for three against Seattle (19-26, 5th AL West) and three against Texas (34-14, 1st Al West), and will then hit the road for three against the Mets (25-22, 2nd NL East) and three against Baltimore (16-30, 5th AL East) to get us into the beginning of June. We’re currently 18-29, and though our offense has improved, we still have a -47 run differential and losing records both at home and on the road. Plenty of room to improve.