James Wood slugs leadoff homer against Red Sox

His second four-hit game over the past month, Meidroth was a key piece of this White Sox win. Twice he came up with runners in scoring position and twice he came through with RBI knocks. Another one of his singles helped push a rally along in the sixth inning as well. For all of the fanfare this White Sox team has earned this season, Meidroth has mostly flown under the radar despite a .277 batting average and .347 on-base percentage while playing solid defense at second base. That’s a winning ballplayer.

The White Sox’s bullpen deployment is going to make fantasy managers pull their hair out. It seemed like the flame-throwing Grant Taylor had finally ascended to closing duties after being called upon in a save opportunity in four of his past five outings. Then, he entered this game in the seventh inning with a two-run lead and the top of the Rangers’ order coming up. He struck out five of the six batters he faced in two quick innings and handed the ball to Hudson for the save. It seems like this bullpen will continue to be a headache despite Taylor clearly being the best pitcher to roster in it.

This was a laborious five innings from Kay. After giving up a home run in the second, he put runners in scoring position in each of the third, fourth and fifth innings. The most stressful of those was the fourth when he loaded the bases with zero outs and somehow escaped with just one run scoring. It wasn’t pretty, but he got the job done and forced 15 whiffs in the process. That was tied for the second-most in a single game in his career. One other time where he forced at least 15 whiffs was way back in 2021. Otherwise, the other three have come in his last eight starts. Next up, he’s scheduled for a two-start week against the Yankees at home and Rays on the road.

In what would wind up as an incredibly quiet night for the Rangers’ offense, Cauley got them on the board early with a solo home run. It was an opposite field shot that looked like nothing special off the bat, but floated over the right field fence. Only playing sparingly since being promoted just under a month ago, Cauley showed moderate power and great speed through the upper minors and could make an impact in both categories should he work his way into an everyday role.

Quantrill followed opener Tyler Alexander and got himself through three innings here. His second of which was cumbersome. He walked both Munetaka Murakami and Colson Montgomery to start the inning and let each come around to score via two two-out singles. Both of his other two innings were clean, but don’t look to Quantrill in anything besides the very deepest of leagues.

Montero showed what he was capable of in his return to the Tigers’ rotation by dicing up the Cubs here. Seiya Suzuki took him deep as the second batter of the game before Montero ripped off a stretch of retiring 14 of 15 hitters from the first through the fifth inning. He might’ve had a chance to get through the sixth too, but misplayed a dribbler from Pete Crow-Armstrong to start the frame and was taken out one batter later with just 81 pitches. Nevertheless, he forced 14 total swings-and-misses including multiple with four different pitches. He had plenty of answers against hitters from both sides of the plate, showcased great command, and looks like he will stick in the rotation moving forward with Jack Flaherty heading to the injured list and an expected sell-off in Detroit. For next week, he’s scheduled for two starts. First against the Orioles at home followed by a difficult matchup with the Athletics on the road.

Torkelson got the Tigers rolling in this one with a solo home run in the second inning. That was his 19th of the season and he was involved in rallies in the fourth and ninth innings too as Detroit pulled away from the Cubs. Despite going just 5-for-23 since the All-Star break, three of Torkelson’s hits are homers. He’s anything but consistent, but at least there’s some power in this profile.

Suzuki homered as the Cubs’ second batter of the game and they wouldn’t score another run for the rest of the game. Regardless, that was his 17th long ball of the season and his seventh over his last 30 games to go along with a .302/.399/.560 slash line over that same span. For all the fear about how poorly he was hitting in May, his .844 OPS is better than his career average and elite power threat we’ve come to expect over the last few seasons.

The extent of the damage against Rea here came via two home runs. The first was a solo shot by Spencer Torkelson in the second inning on a 1-2 slider that caught too much of the plate and the next was a three-run blast by Hao-Yu Lee on a 3-0 fastball in the fourth. Otherwise, he allowed very little contact and didn’t encounter many other stressful situations. He’s scheduled for a two-start week coming up against the Cardinals and Yankees.

The homer broke a 3-3 tie in the sixth. Muncy passed Ron Cey with his 228th homer as a Dodger, moving him into fourth place in franchise history. He’s 14 behind Roy Campanella for third place.