Maybe they will avoid 100 losses, after all.
It will take winning a series from the San Diego Padres on the final weekend of the season, but the White Sox will finish 63-99 with two wins out of three after they defeated the Arizona Diamondbacks 3-1 Thursday afternoon.
It would be a small consolation for a team that started 7-21, sold off players at the trade deadline and lost 41 of their last 59 games.
Touki Toussaint pitched four innings of one-run ball, the Sox bullpen did not allow a run after that, and Andrew Vaughn and Yoan Moncada each homered to supply the offense. Vaughn is batting .300 with five homers and 15 RBI in his last 26 games. He has 21 homers and 80 RBI this season.
Vaughn homered against right-hander Bryce Jarvis. Moncada, who homered batting right-handed against lefty Kyle Nelson, is batting .313 with seven homers and 23 RBI in his last 40 games.
The Sox are 61-98.
Kopech: Wait’ll next year
Michael Kopech said the cyst he had removed last week, ending his season, didn’t hinder his performance this season.
“Not by any means an excuse” for his 5.43 ERA, 91 walks and 29 home runs allowed in 1291⁄3 innings, Kopech said Thursday.
Nor should it impact his offseason.
“And that was the idea behind getting it done right now and not later on and missing a month of the offseason,” Kopech said. “I should be able to get a jump start on getting ready for next season.”
A reflective and introspective sort, Kopech said he must learn from a full season of adversity.
“You have to,” he said.
“There’s many things to take away from this year, patience being one of them,” he said. “I can look back when I was looking ahead of results instead of in the present moment and attacking each day, each hitter, each pitch. It’s something I know already, but to put into practice is a lot more serious and deliberate work. Overall I have to be prepared every day.”
Even on days between starts, he said.
“One of the things I’m most excited about is how I’ve been able to handle adversity,” Kopech said, “and day to day it may not seem like I handled it great, but to go through a season like this and get ready for hopefully a great bounceback for the team and myself individually, I’m happy to wear that chip on my shoulder.”
