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Good morning.

Shawn McFarland writes that with Josh Jung the latest infirmed, the Texas Rangers were forced to get creative with their lineup in Sunday’s finale. That creative lineup struck out 16 times and the Rangers were nearly perfecto’d as they were swept by the worst team in baseball.

MLB dot com’s Jack Janes writes that the Rangers got a good outing from MacKenzie Gore only to score the fewest runs in the series.

McFarland writes that a discouraging 3-6 road trip against the three worst teams in baseball ended in appropriately depressing fashion with a walk-off error.

MLB dot com’s Courtney Hollmon notes that things could have been worse as Jung’s shoulder issue doesn’t appear to be serious.

McFarland writes that in Texas’ never-ending quest to get their actual full lineup back, Wyatt Langford has shown improvement in his rehab while Corey Seager has hit a snag.

And, the folks at ESPN check in on the standings filled with bad teams and disappointments as we’ve reached the season’s one-third mark on Memorial Day.

Have a nice day!

Amongst a roster of underperforming hitters, Tyler O’Neill‘s poor season has managed to stand out. Brought in prior to the 2025 campaign to be a veteran power threat, the now-30-year-old has spent most of his Orioles stint either on the IL or scuffling at the plate. For an Orioles team that needs to do whatever it can to win games, it’s tough to justify a place in the lineup for the high-priced outfielder.

As of this writing, O’Neill is in the midst of an 0-for-16 stretch that has brought his season batting line down to .146/.262/.225 with two home runs, seven RBI, 12 walks, and 25 strikeouts. His 47 wRC+ is the worst on the team, and is down near the bottom of the entire league.

The first month of the season wasn’t great for O’Neill. He had a .640 OPS and went on the IL for a bit. But that was world’s better than the .360 OPS he has so far in May.

And forget about him being a viable option against left-handed pitching. That has been a disaster as well with O’Neill hitting .051./.140/.051 against southpaws this season. But he has been decent against righties (.220/.350/.710), so maybe there is a path for him as a reverse splits option? The Orioles don’t seem to think so. They pinch hit him for Colton Cowser on Sunday evening to face a lefty out of Detroit’s bullpen. O’Neill struck out.

Now, in analyzing O’Neill this year you have to consider his health. He went on the IL in mid-April with a concussion, suffered after fainting while “extremely dehydrated” on an off day. Prior to the concussion, O’Neill owned a respectable, albeit underwhelming, line of .241/.353/.345 (.698 OPS). Since being activated on April 25, he is hitting .100/.217/.167. It may not be as simple as saying that the concussion is why O’Neill has performed so poorly, but it probably hasn’t helped.

We do know that the effects of a concussion can linger. Heston Kjerstad suffered a concussion in July of 2024. It took months for him to even get back on the field, and it seemed like he was still dealing with the effects for much of 2025, though the Orioles were not transparent about the specifics of Kjerstad’s health. Back in 2023, a bout with vertigo cost Ryan Mountcastle a month of games, and he needed more than two weeks of minor league rehab in order to get back to game shape. Vertigo and concussions are not the same diagnosis, but they can be related.

There has not been reporting that indicates O’Neill is still battling his concussion in any way. But we do know it is his second concussion as a big leaguer, the other coming back in 2023. Usually your brain needs longer to recovery from subsequent injuries. And while he did miss more than two weeks of action, he did not go down to the minors for any rehab games. It would be normal and understandable if he was still trying to get himself right.

Now, we must also admit that O’Neill’s first season in Baltimore was disappointing too. He hit .199/.292/.392 a season ago and played in just 54 games due to multiple IL stints. Those injuries were neck inflammation, left shoulder impingement, and right wrist inflammation.

And it’s not as if O’Neill has been the most dependable player in his career. He’s been worth -0.6 bWAR this season, was worth -0.6 bWAR last year, and accumulated just 0.3 bWAR in 2023. He was solid for Boston in 2024, producing 2.9 bWAR, which earned him his current contract with the Orioles. Right now, that looks like an anomaly that the Orioles bought high on, and it is entirely possible that he just isn’t very good anymore.

That contract pays O’Neill $16.5 million per year for three years. It runs through the end of 2027. According to Spotrac, he is the third-highest paid player on the Orioles roster after Pete Alonso ($31 million) and Chris Bassitt ($18.5 million).

The combination of a big salary and poor results has fans clamoring for O’Neill to be released. That ire is understandable, but unless O’Neill is also a locker room liability (it doesn’t seem that he is), it probably isn’t happening in-season.

The Orioles other outfield options aren’t great. Dylan Beavers has no timeframe for his return from a right oblique strain he suffered a couple of weeks ago. Those tend to linger. Tommy Pham, now 38 years old, was signed to a minor league deal last week. That feels like an indictment of their confidence in the likes of Ryan Noda, Johnathan Rodriguez, or Jud Fabian to come up an fill the need. Reed Trimble is back on the IL for the second time this season and has played just three games at Triple-A in 2026. Kjerstad is rehabbing in Norfolk, but has just a .630 OPS down there, though he feels like the most logical replacement.

Right now, the Orioles must just feel like O’Neill’s potential to rebound and be at least close to league average is better that what most other internal options can provide. That isn’t a crazy perspective to take, even if you may disagree with the conclusion. Also, releasing O’Neill is final. If you let him go, he won’t be coming back. Whereas other members of the big league squad with minor league options could be yo-yo’ed back and forth without anything being lost.

O’Neill’s long-term standing with the organization does feel shaky though. Two consecutive, injury-riddled, poor seasons feels like the type of player to get the boot next offseason. Waiting until the winter to pull the trigger on such a move is just easier. It would give the team time to sort out their plans on the grass, and they would also only be swallowing one season of dead salary rather than a year and a half. That sounds trivial, but teams often care about the optics and financials of these moves.

So, what can be done in the meantime? The Orioles need to put their best foot forward. This version of O’Neill does not provide that, at least not on a regular basis. But releasing him right now seems unlikely. If it’s possible, a return to the IL followed by a week or two in Norfolk could be best for everyone. It would relieve some pressure on O’Neill and give the Orioles room to bring up someone else that might have a chance to be a net positive in the short term.

A very low-effort question for when folks should probably be anywhere else but here… especially given the off-day, even if it is a U.S. federal holiday and all.

Which is really the question itself. It’s a holiday, which usually means MLB has a full slate of games, often afternoon games. Yet, MLB does not have a full slate of games, with four teams off. The Braves are one of those four. Last year, on Memorial Day, MLB had six teams off, and the Braves were one of those. Basically, for scheduling purposes, MLB doesn’t treat Memorial Day as a special occasion, but just a semi-regular Monday that includes some travel days. I say semi-regular because while there are more day games, it’s not overwhelmingly day games. Labor Day this year is similar, with a handful of teams off, though there are more day games. (Juneteenth is on a Friday and the Fourth of July is on a Saturday, so hard to talk about other holiday schedules this year.)

Anyway, does it strike you as odd that MLB didn’t make a concerted effort to have a full slate on a federal holiday? Or, that the Braves have somehow been off two Memorial Days in a row?

We’ve reached the point where I feel like I’m part of the problem. Not as far as the on the field product of course. What is happening there belongs to this team and this front office. But I feel like a very small part of some of your fandom. Right now I feel about like I told you that it was okay to cross the street and you were hit by a car while crossing the street. For what little it’s worth, I’m blindsided too.

I’ve used the story of Lucy moving the football so many times in the past. But I think almost always, it was a story about an individual game. I don’t think I’ve ever felt a whole season was Lucy moving the football. A few days ago, I was reminded for the first time of the 2021 Cubs. But even there, as I said it, I thought it was just a shadow of a memory. Even when that season was going good, it wasn’t going as good as this season was when it was going good.

It feels completely in possible that the 2o-3 stretch that is literally the best stretch of Cubs baseball any of us have ever experienced was literally fools gold. Even as I type it, it’s impossible to comprehend. The gold standard of recent Cub teams, the 2016 team, had a stretch of nine losses in 10 games as part of a 5-15 stretch. So there is precedent for a good Cub team going through this. But at this point, we are further back than square one. Whereas that team had clear championship aspirations and all kinds of good will built up, this one has used up all of its currency.

I’m not one really for histrionics or hyperbole. Obviously, there are more than 100 games left in this season. If the season ended right now, this team would hold the last wild card spot. They are obviously very much alive for that pursuit. I still think that this team likely ends up there. But, I am 100 percent a realist. I would not have entertained a world in which this team was a seller at the deadline this year and I’m seeing that as a very real possibility right now. I knew that the injuries to the pitching staff had completely undermined what this front office was trying to do. But I thought there was enough depth to survive it, even if it diminished the upside for this team.

It is no longer out of the question that this team is a seller. Stunning. This team has now lost seven games in row in which the Fangraphs Cub schedule win probability showed the Cubs favored to win. That by itself is staggering. They are headed on a road trip now where the initial impression is that they lose five of seven. Edward Cabrera is lost to them for this road trip. Losing five or more games doesn’t seem insane. If that happens, this team comes home out of the Wild Card position. I’m not sure it can perpetuate the consistent winning baseball to overcome a scrum to land in one of those Wild Card positions at this point.

I seriously can’t remember a quicker rise and fall in the years of my baseball fandom. I could draw some comparisons to the Bears teams of the late 80’s. But this is just flabbergasting. Suddenly, I hope that in a few weeks I look back and laugh about the last Sunday in May when I jumped ship prematurely. How did we get here?

Three Positives:

• Michael Busch had a single, a two-run homer and drew a walk.
• Pedro Ramirez got his first big league start and marked it with a double, an RBI, a run scored and even drew a walk.
• Pete Crow-Armstrong had three walks and a sacrifice fly. He drove in one and scored another.

Game 53,May 24: Astros 8, Cubs 5 (29-24)

Reminder: Heroes and Goats are determined by WPA scores and are in no way subjective.

THREE HEROES:

• Superhero: Carson Kelly (.130). 2-4, R
• Hero: Pete Crow-Armstrong (.111). 0-1, 3 BB, SF, RBI, R
• Sidekick: Michael Busch (.064). 2-4, HR, BB, 2 RBI, R

THREE GOATS:

• Billy Goat: Shōta Imanaga (-.520). 6 IP, 26 BF, 7 H, BB, 7 ER, 6 K, HBP (L 4-5)
• Goat: Michael Conforto (-.118). 0-4
• Kid: Seiya Suzuki (-.094). 0-4

WPA Play of the Game: The Cubs were leading by one when Jeremy Peña singled with the bases loaded and two outs in the fifth. Two runs scored and the Astros would go on to score five. (.253)

Cubs Play of the Game: Pedro Ramirez batted with runners on the corners, the Cubs down one in the second with one out. He doubled and a run scored to tie the game, on the way to three runs for the Cubs. (.129)

Cubs Player of the Game:

Game 52 Winner: Colin Rea received 66 of 90 votes.

Rizzo Award Standings: (Top 5/Bottom 5)

The award is named for Anthony Rizzo, who finished first in this category three of the first four years it was in existence and four times overall. He also recorded the highest season total ever at +65.5. The point scale is three points for a Superhero down to negative three points for a Billy Goat.

• Michael Busch +17
• Michael Conforto/Nico Hoerner +12
• Trent Thornton +7.5
• Shōta Imanaga +7
• Ryan Rolison -8
• Phil Maton -9
• Matt Shaw -10
• Dansby Swanson -11
• Seiya Suzuki -22.5

Current Win Pace: 88.64 wins

Up Next: The Cubs travel to Pittsburgh for four games, starting with a Memorial Day afternoon game. The Pirates won Sunday and are 27-26. Ben Brown (1-2, 2.09, 38.2 IP) has started two of the last three games that the Cubs have won. That despite the fact that he lost to the Brewers in his start, allowing three runs in five innings. He battled in that one and has looked great as a starter. No pressure, but this team really needs Ben to step up in this spot.

The opposition is 27-year-old Carmen Mlodzinski (4-3, 3.96, 50 IP). The competitive balance pick of the Pirates in the 2020 draft (30th overall) out of South Carolina has won his last two starts, beating the Cardinals and Rockies. He’s had three very good starts in a row after three rough ones over the last two weeks of April and first week of May. Back on April 10, he held the Cubs scoreless over 5.1 innings in Chicago.

It doesn’t get much better after this. Find a way. Stop the skid.

The Phillies are headed out west this week to take on the Padres and the Dodgers. They aren’t exactly playing the greatest baseball right now at the plate, so playing two teams as good as them isn’t promising. However, the Phillies have at times risen to their competition on the west coast, particularly when playing these two teams.

Let’s not talk about Arizona and San Francisco.

So, what are your expectations while they are out west? Do you see the team getting up for the games and playing/hitting better, or will it be a slow, painful, tiresome watch? At least in San Diego, they should have the pitching advantage most games and the Padres are probably a worse offensive team than the Phillies. In Los Angeles, well, at least they’re going to have Zack Wheeler throwing in one game.

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NL Central rivals collide this afternoon as the St. Louis Cardinals and Milwaukee Brewers begin a three-game set at American Family Field. First pitch is scheduled for 2:05 p.m. ET. 

With Jacob Misiorowski on the hill, my Cardinals vs. Brewers predictions are targeting Milwaukee to take the series opener. 

Read more in my MLB picks for Monday, May 25. 

Who will win Cardinals vs Brewers today: Brewers moneyline (-210)

The Milwaukee Brewers send their ace to the hill this afternoon in Jacob Misiorowski, who sports an impressive 1.89 ERA and a 4-2 record. He has been absolutely lights out this month, throwing four straight scoreless outings. 

Misiorowski's ERA is 2.04 at home, and he's historically had success against the St. Louis Cardinals, though the sample size is small. Across 33 at-bats, they're hitting just .212 off the right-hander.

On the other side, the Brew Crew will face left-hander Matthew Liberatore, who has given up four earned runs in back-to-back starts. 

Overall, he has a 4.70 ERA, and Liberatore's ERA is above four on the road. Milwaukee has a 16-11 record at American Family Field, and it's won three of its last four meetings with St. Louis at home. 

COVERS INTEL: Misiorowski has posted a career-best 2.12 FIP this season through 10 appearances. 

Cardinals vs Brewers Over/Under pick: Under 7.5 (-105)

While Liberatore has had his struggles lately, there have been a few solid starts for him over the last month as well.

Before surrendering four earned on the road to the Athletics, he only allowed two earned in each of his previous two starts away from St. Louis, and the Brewers aren't exactly coming in hot, scoring four runs against the Dodgers across Saturday and Sunday. 

Misiorowski's case here is clear. He rarely gives up runs, and the Cardinals offense is inconsistent. They're losers of three of four, and St. Louis scored only eight runs combined in those defeats. 

Two of the last four meetings have also cashed the Over.

Cardinals vs Brewers odds

• Moneyline: Cardinals +122 | Brewers -163
• Run line: Cardinals +1.5 (-120) | Brewers -1.5 (+120)
• Over/Under: Over 7.5 (-118) | Under 7.5 (-104)

Cardinals vs Brewers trend

Six of Milwaukee's last 10 games have cashed the Under in total runs. Find more MLB betting trends for Cardinals vs. Brewers.

How to watch Cardinals vs Brewers and game info

Cardinals vs Brewers latest injuries

Cardinals vs Brewers weather

This article originally appeared on Covers.com, read the full article here and view our best betting sites or check out our top sportsbook promos.

Angels 2, Rangers 1

• I will take the blame for this one.
• You see, on the Yahoo sports app on my phone on Sunday there was a blurb about the Rangers/Angels game that said “Don’t expect a lot of scoring in this duel between two lefty aces.”
• I screenshotted it and posted it, saying that the two “lefty aces” were MacKenzie Gore and Reid Detmers. Much hilarity, right?
• And so what happens? Reid Detmers goes out and carves up the Rangers. After a 1-2-3 first, he allows a leadoff homer in the second to Jake Burger, then retires the next 21 batters he faces in a row.
• Detmers strikes out 14 batters while retiring 24 of 25 batters faced. It is one of teh most dominante performances of the season.
• And MacKenzie Gore, meanwhile, also allows just one hit and one run. He does it in six innings, though, and only strikes out seven while walking two batters.
• See what happens? I make jokes, and the universe decides to mock me.
• Now, you may think that I’m not so important that the universe would go out of its way to make this happen just to mock me. And that is a reasonable point.
• However, what if I am that important? Or what if my consciousness is breaking off into the particularly strand of universes that involves being mocked? Have you thought of that?
• The ninth inning also seemed designed to mock Rangers fans in general, should we wish to take a particularly solipsistic view of the universe.
• Two outs in the ninth, and the Rangers get their second baserunner of the game. They follow it up with their third and fourth baserunners of the game, bringing up Jake Burger, with the bases loaded, the person responsible for their one run of the game. Jake Burger, in position to give the Rangers the lead.
• And he strikes out.
• Then the bottom of the ninth, Gavin Collyer…
• I will say, as an aside, the decision to use Gavin Collyer in that situation was surprising to me. Collyer was just called up, and had pitched the day before for Round Rock.
• Collyer strikes out a batter, gives up a single, hits a batter…
• Collyer, I will note, has now hit four batters on the season. That’s a lot for someone who has faced just 57 major league batters. Nathan Eovaldi has hit 5 batters this year, and no one else on the team has hit more than two.
• Collyer does his job and gets a weak roller right to Justin Foscue. Foscue, who had spoken the day before about feeling bad for getting picked off yet again on Saturday and letting the team down, has an easy 4-3 double play ahead of him.
• He steps on second, bobbles the transition of the ball from his glove to his throwing hand, then rushing the throw, putting it into the dirt. Jake Burger doesn’t scoop it. Pinch runner Donovan Walton scores from second. The Angels walk it off.
• How does one, as a fan, even react to a loss like that?
• I don’t know the answer to that.
• MacKenzie Gore maxed out at 96.7 mph with his fastball, averaging 95.6 mph. Jakob Junis hit 93.1 mph with his sinker. Gavin Collyer’s fastball touched 97.2 mph.
• Jake Burger had a 101.9 mph fly out and a 101.1 mph home run. Justin Foscue had a 101.4 mph fly out. Sam Haggerty had a 100.0 mph ground out.
• Hopefully things will go better at home.

What do you even want me to say at this point, respectfully?

Before I get on my soap box and complain for however-many words, let me just quickly say that I appreciate the fact that you’re here. It’s a holiday Monday, you could’ve done anything else with your long weekend, and yet you decided to read the upset ramblings of a man who is really pissed off with his shitty baseball team. For that, I thank you. Isn’t that the American Dream, what I’m living out right now?

Tongue-in-cheek comments aside: I’m exhausted, folks. Not with the writing—I’ll be here on OTM until the bitter end—but with the watching. Forgive me for the stream of consciousness this week, but I don’t know what else to do.

The 2026 Boston Red Sox are a chore to watch. I don’t really remember the last time I’ve ever felt that way in my life. I’m not sure I’ve ever felt that way, actually, now that I think about it. I was in high school in 2012; I still had that youthful spunk where I wanted to watch my team. I was still probably riding enough of a high after 2013 to ensure that the following two season weren’t a monotonous watch. Even the non-‘21-and-‘25 teams in the 2020’s weren’t this miserable to sit through at this point in the season, at least for me (your mileage may vary).

After a sweep at the hands of the Minnesota Twins, the Sox are dangerously close to being 10 games under .500, as if avoiding that label would be any fucking consolation prize for a team that was getting AL pennant shouts two months ago (and I’m guilty of that too! I had Seattle winning the pennant over us! Not that the Seattle prediction is going well, but my goodness!). This team is a joke. They are, simply put, pathetic. I’m not sure how in depth I can go with that as my basis right now.

Perhaps this is just my own personal reckoning with the situation, but doesn’t this feel like the right time for it? The unofficial date to begin worrying about your team has always been Memorial Day. We’re there now, and I think the season’s just about over already. There’s no generational prospect coming up through the minors to help us. The coaching staff has already been cleaned out. The money is being allocated by FSG in some capacity, for all the ownership group’s faults, yet here we are. The roster construction is still a mess and it will continue to be a mess for the immediate future.

To quote a wise sheriff…

If there’s a way out of this mess, I can’t personally see it. I try to be as optimistic as possible, but I do not see a path to 270 electoral votes this year. I’d love to eat these words in a few months, but I don’t believe in this group. I’ve seen enough. I’ll keep watching because I’m a sicko. I’ll keep writing about this team because I love writing and I love the Red Sox and I love this lil’ gig I’ve been blessed with getting. But I sure as hell do not love this iteration of the team, man. We’ll have plenty of time to talk about what needs to happen to right the ship (I don’t want to be rash, but I’m becoming more and more of a #BreslowOut guy as the days go on, slowly but surely), but as for right now: I think the prospects we had in late March about this team contending in October are just about done and dusted.

If you’re a consistent reader, you know that I like to dive into the developments that have happened over the course of the week in the MMBB, whether they’re good or bad. That practice will continue for the rest of the season. I’ll try to be as optimistic as possible moving forward in 2026, but just know that I’m probably harboring a sense of dread alongside any positive words I have until I’m given a reason by the team to feel otherwise. Why waste my time by thinking things could be getting better this season when I’m talking about any consistent trends that Jarren Duran might’ve had at the plate this week? The last time I did that, he sucked for another week-and-change. I did the same with Marcelo Mayer before then, and it’s been even worse for him. I could talk until I’m blue in the face about the positive trends being made by a Payton Tolle or a Sonny Gray or a, dare I say, Brayan Bello when he’s being preceded by an opener.

Doesn’t matter, dude. We suck shit.

All of those positive trends could be true in a vacuum, but I don’t think they’re gonna ultimately matter this year—short of something extraordinary happening. The pitching’s been pretty solid overall, the defense has been stellar, and I’ve tried finding the positives in an underwhelming lineup. All of that together has gotten us eight games below an even .500. We’re a laughing stock in the league; a banter club, if you follow the Premier League. We’ve got Buster Olney saying we’ve got to abort the Caleb Durbin experiment. The question of “What the fuck are we doing in the front office” is a legitimate one at this stage. To get even more existential, another great question is “What is the plan moving forward?”

We’ve got nothing going for us on a consistent basis. Even after a sweep in Kansas City, the team goes and shits their pants yet again at home. The only time I’ve ever given true credence to the idea of momentum not being a thing has been with watching this collection of guys representing the Red Sox, because I haven’t seen an ounce of it this year. What is there to look forward to for the last four months of the year?

I guess I’ve gotta answer that question for myself. Maybe you do as well.

Again: I’ll be here for y’all. I’ll talk about positive and negative trends as I see ‘em, because I like talking ball. I love this team, I love this sport, and I love talking about both the team as well as the sport.

But I suppose this is my official declaration that I’m not gonna be fooled by this specific group going forward. I’ve been patient enough thus far; the patience is gone. I’m not holding any reservations for them for the rest of the year, because they don’t deserve those reservations. We’ve crossed the Rubicon, if the Rubicon was filled with poo. Maybe we’re drowning in that Rubicon instead, come to think of it. Either way: I don’t see a way where we could be going back.

I’ll still watch, I’ll still write, I’ll still support, but I don’t believe in this group as things currently stand. I’d love to be proven wrong, but I don’t think I’m alone in this sentiment. What have they done to prove otherwise? I’ve tried putting a spotlight on positive things (and I’m not trying to sound like the end-all-be-all of Sox analysis here, folks; this is just my personal ramblings) and they haven’t amounted to much of anything. I don’t care how bad the American League is. We’re a prime example of that suckiness. How many times can the boy cry wolf? How many times can the Sox blogger cry positive regression?

I dunno, folks. I’m just exhausted with this team already. I think it’ll be a………………………………………..

Song of the Week: “Cruel Summer” by Taylor Swift

I swear I didn’t go into this aiming for it to be a 1,200+ word set-up to a stupid joke, but if the shoe fits….

Same time and same place next week, folks. Go Sox, I guess. Who gives a fuck anymore?

Last week you might recall that the weekly recap touched on the fact that it’s not every week the White Sox hit 15 home runs. There are also going to be weeks where they only hit four — and this week was one of them. The record of the West Coast trip reflects this lack of long ball, at 2-4. For the first time this month, the South Siders have lost back-to-back series.

The good news is that this is the last trip west this season. The bad news is this small skid back to .500 is happening right before three intradivisional series, and the first time this season that there will be an encounter with a team in the AL Central other than the Kansas City Royals.

Funny enough, the pitching staff’s ERA (4.54) was lower this week than it was when we took a series from the Cubs. However, the pitching still allowed a lot of runs, while the offense hit .202.

The two wins that did occur this week were worth noting.

The first was a 2-1 victory in Seattle. Anthony Kay loaded the bases in the first inning with only one out. This allowed Patrick Wisdom to collect his first RBI of 2026 with a ground out. The game would remain at 1-0 until the top of the ninth inning. Munetaka Murakami led the inning off with a walk. Miguel Vargas was hit by a pitch to put the tying run in scoring position. With one out, Chase Meidroth and Andrew Benintendi hit back-to-back RBI singles:

For the first time all game, the White Sox took the lead. Grant Taylor brought the heat and closed the game out to earn the save and give Chicago the opportunity to take the series.

Kay really bounced back after running into trouble the first. He exited the game after 5 1/3 innings, throwing 57 of his 89 pitches for strikes, striking out five and walking three. In the month of May, Kay has not given up more than two runs and his ERA over four starts is just 2.11. (Over five starts in April, that same ERA was 6.64.) Here’s hoping this momentum continues, because his consistent starting presence is something this rotation needs.

When the Seattle leg of the road trip finished, it was time to head to San Francisco, where the result was exactly the same as it was in Oregon. An off-day on Thursday appeared to be what the doctor ordered when the White Sox exploded for nine runs in the fourth inning, the most runs they’ve scored in a single inning this season and the most without a home run since 2000. The two big scoring plays were doubles by Benintendi and Murakami:

Was it a coincidence the night the White Sox scored their most runs this week was also the night Davis Martin was also pitching? Probably not. The righthander is becoming notorious for winning the day after a South Side loss. Even though Martin would end up giving up a season-high four runs over 5 2/3 innings, he earned his seventh win of the season and help the Pale Hose avoid back-to-back losses:

The rest of the week left something to be desired. The lowlight occurred on Saturday, when the White Sox dropped multiple pop-ups in the sun. Through the top of the fifth, the game was tied … and then the bottom of the inning came around. Instead of me explaining, please enjoy some video evidence:

Later in the inning Mune would lose a Harrison Bader foul ball in the sun. The missed out opened the door for a Rafael Devers grand slam and nail in the coffin. I will not make you suffer through that clip, too. This game also happened to be started by Erik Fedde, who came in after a Bryan Hudson open. The veteran righty lasted just 3 1/3 innings, giving up eight of San Francisco’s 10 runs. Including Fedde, the bullpen had a 6.66 ERA over 25 innings of work this week.

Other poor pitching performances this week came from rookie starter Noah Schultz. The 6´10´´ starter opened the week in Seattle and closed the road trip out in San Francisco. In total, he worked 9 1/3 innings, gave up nine earned runs, struck out seven, and hit four batters. The positive is he has only walked one batter in the last 43 he has faced. The negative is offenses hitting .297 against the Southpaw.

The White Sox are headed back to 35th and Shields and will be back in action against the Minnesota Twins on Memorial Day at 1:10 p.m. CDT. It is a long flight back, and a short turnaround. I truly hope the plane ride home was one of rest.

Hello folks, hope you’re able to enjoy an off day today.

The Red Sox do not play baseball today, thankfully.

Very simple and plain question for you today: is it over? I think it just might be, but I want to hear more from you.

Be good to each other and go Sox.