Speedrunning offensive ineptitude: White Sox lumber curls up, blows away, 2-0

Not sure what the big deal is about beating the White Sox for the 27th time in 34 games, but you do you, Royals. | (Photo by Jay Biggerstaff/Getty Images) On a night 21° colder than Thursday, everyone on the field was playing like it was 21°, period, as it didn’t even take two hours for Kansas City pitching to utterly eviscerate and embarrass their visitors’ offensive attack. Kansas City starter Kris Bubic and White Sox counterpart threw pitches like they had to pay per toss, burning through the first two-thirds of the game.

Bubic rang up five Ks (yep, shocking) in his first run through the order, piling up his sixth of 10 batters with a second punch-out of Chase Meidroth and seventh of 12 batters treating Munetaka Murakami likewise. By the end of the fourth, the southpaw had held the Pale Hose hitless and added insult with a nine-pitch frame. But ascending ace Martin matched Bubic through three, ending that stanza on just five pitches.

That effort was aided by a tidy toss-out of Isaac Collins by Tanner Murray, as Collins got greedy on a bloop to left he deigned a double. The effort ended in d’oh, and Martin put his windbreaker on in the dugout at just 32 pitches. But Davis got rocked and socked a bit to start the fourth, as just four pitches in the Royals broke ahead on two sharp hits: Makiel García singled to right and Bobby Witt Jr.

doubled deep to left. View Link Bobby Baseball now has a 23-game hit streak against the White Sox. But even through the trauma of a broken tie, Martin was ruthlessly efficient, dispatching the R’s on 12 pitches and leaving Jr.