White Sox lose first series of season Sunday — the first of many to come — as runs dry up

New York Times

31-03-2025

CHICAGO — When the rain came Sunday to the South Side, it was late but not unexpected.
Predicted showers for the rubber match of the Angels-White Sox series held off until the bottom of the seventh inning, but when the downpour came, it happened quickly. With wind and hail coming down, the Rate Field grounds crew couldn't get the tarp unfurled in time because it got stuck, and the result was a patchwork quilt of smaller tarps and a very wet field.
We're getting close to the finished product.
The White Sox have a lot of tarps. pic.twitter.com/QfRyuvsGuF
— Sam Blum (@SamBlum3) March 30, 2025
Groundskeeper Roger Bossard, the famed 'Sodfather,' said he's seen a lot in his days manning a tarp, but nothing like this.
'I've had some trying times in my career, eight inches of snow before opening day, stuff like that,' he told CHSN's Brooke Fletcher in the rare dugout interview with the groundskeeper. 'This one takes the cake. I don't ever remember hail while I was pulling the tarp, and I used close to four tons of drying compound. I'm so proud of the crew, we all hung together and everything turned out well.'
Hard as it is to believe, Bossard later claimed the rain — which really didn't last that long, comparatively — was a weather event of historical proportions and he's worked here since 1967.
Bossard: "I have to be honest with you. Disco Demolition is No. 1 on my hit list of course. This is probably No. 2. I've never run into where I had 3 inches of water on the infield and then got it ready. I'm proud of my crew and the job they did."
— Scott Merkin (@scottmerkin) March 30, 2025
After a nearly three-hour rain delay, the field was dry enough and the White Sox and Angels resumed action. The aftermath was familiar: Sox hitters stranded some runners, a reliever gave up a homer and the Angels won, 3-2. Unlike last season, the Sox at least spent a few days without a losing record.
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Four tons of drying compound to play 2 1/2 innings and lose a game? The team's RSN isn't being carried by Comcast yet, so they're already short on dough. I don't know how bad this will dent the budget, but I think the 2005 reunion later this summer is going to have a cash bar.
If that turn of events happened last season — a tarp malfunction followed immediately by a late-inning loss — the takes would've pelted the Sox like the persistent hail that so vexed Bossard's crew. You know, #LOLSox and all that.
But it's a new season on the South Side, a fresh start for a team in desperate need of a total makeover, so no one was ribbing them too hard. After all, the Sox proved the haters wrong by winning their first game of the season, 8-1, before ceding to said haters by losing the next two with almost no offense to speak of. Still, they only lost each game by a run, so is it too early to start whipping votes for Will Venable for manager of the year? Can the Sox pitch their way to meeting my bold prediction of 56 wins, equaling Mark Buehrle's jersey number in the year of his statue unveiling?
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Venable and his boss, general manager Chris Getz, can certainly be pleased with the results from their starting pitchers in the first series. Sean Burke and Jonathan Cannon each had scoreless outings (six and five innings, respectively) and Sunday's starter, Davis Martin, gave up two unearned runs in six innings. Veteran journeyman Martín Pérez starts in Monday's matinee against the Minnesota Twins and then the rotation's wild card, Rule 5 pick Shane Smith, starts Tuesday night.
The pitching in the minors is the strength of the organization, and while big lefties Noah Schultz and Hagen Smith, along with hitters like Kyle Teel or Colson Montgomery, are more interesting to follow for Sox fans these days, don't sleep on this early series with the Twins. If the Sox are hoping to avoid total embarrassment at the big-league level, beating a divisional rival every once in a while would help.
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Last year, the Sox went 10-42 against the AL Central, helping the Royals and Tigers make the playoffs as wild cards. The Twins won 12 of 13 against them, but still finished in fourth.
Heck, the White Sox won only eight series in 2024, but how many times did they have a chance like Sunday? When the rain began, I was in the press box researching how many times the Sox lost the rubber game last year, mostly because I wasn't sure how many times they actually won one of the first two games of a series.
As it turned out, it happened 17 times and the Sox went 5-12 in such games. That .294 winning percentage was actually better than the .253 that comes with a 41-121 record.
OK, I promise I'll stop bringing up 2024!
Soon.
It was my first time at the park this season, so I spent a lot of time walking around before the game, doing important work like cataloguing the price of concessions, taking pictures of T-shirts and trying food.
The vibes were good — except for the people booing former Sox disappointment Yoán Moncada — and it was a typical Sox Sunday crowd, busy but not packed, with the longest line coming at the concourse's balloon animal artist.
An announced crowd of 19,951 showed up, which was an improvement of more than 2,000 from the team's first Sunday game last year. Overall, the first series drew about 7,500 fewer people over three games. The Opening Day crowd of 31,403 was the franchise's lowest since 1999 (not including the 2020-21 seasons), which portends a tough season at the gate. It'll be tough for the fans to get as angry about the team as they were the past few years, but malaise is a different story. The Sox are trying to combat this with another strong promotional calendar for its 125th anniversary season, and without recognizable names — the team only sells jerseys of three current players at the park: Luis Robert Jr., Andrew Vaughn and Andrew Benintendi — and winning baseball, free stuff will have to be a major draw.
The Sox say brighter days are ahead, but first, a deluge of losses is on the way and I'm afraid the Sox will likely have as much success fighting that storm as Bossard's grounds crew did on Sunday.
(Photo of Kyren Paris celebrating his home run in the eighth inning: David Banks / Imagn Images)