You had to work to lose this game. The White Sox found the effort.
Chicago led five separate times Thursday night at Fenway and walked away with nothing, a 12-11 loss to the Red Sox in 13 innings. Five leads, five blown chances. The Chicago Sun-Times put it about as cleanly as anyone could: "While the Red Sox refused to lose, the White Sox refused to win, blowing five leads and falling 12-11 in 13 often agonizing innings."
That's about the size of it, and it isn't flattering. Keep handing an opponent second, third, fourth and fifth chances, and eventually you run into a team hot enough to cash one. Boston is that team right now.
The clearest snapshot of the night was Luis Castillo's White Sox debut. Chicago picked up the three-time All-Star from Seattle at the deadline, and for two innings he looked like the answer, retiring the first seven hitters he faced with a 4-0 lead behind him. Then he walked the No. 8 hitter, gave up a home run to No. 9 hitter Connor Wong, and left a 5-5 tie after four. A two-inning honeymoon, then a shrug.
From there it turned into a bullpen endurance test Chicago was never going to pass. Grant Taylor burned 40 pitches to get six outs. Jordan Hicks and Bryan Hudson were already spent just getting the game to the sixth. By extras, Trevor Richards was basically the only rested arm left, and both leads he inherited evaporated. Erick Fedde, the last of eight Chicago pitchers, wound up with the loss when Caleb Durbin lined a single up the middle in the 13th to score Nick Sogard from second.
What should sting most is that the White Sox got a monster night from Chase Meidroth and still lost. Yahoo tagged him the game's MVP: 3-for-5 with four RBIs, including a two-run homer into the Monster seats that put Chicago ahead in the 10th. On its own, that's a season-defining night. In this game, it was just another lead for Boston to erase.
Because erasing leads is what the Red Sox do now. Boston tied it in the ninth on Wilyer Abreu's single with two outs and two strikes, then answered again in the 10th, 11th and 12th before Durbin's walk-off. ESPN, citing Elias, noted Boston became the first team in MLB history to score in five straight innings in the ninth or later. The whole thing ran 4 hours and 23 minutes, the second-longest game of the pitch-clock era since 2023.
This was also a sweep on top of a sweep. Boston took all three at Fenway and pushed its streak to eight straight, 31 of its last 36 since June 25. It's the second time Boston has swept Chicago this season. Anthony Seigler drove in three runs, and per the Boston Globe, his sac fly in the 12th came in his first game with the Red Sox. Connor Wong added his two-run shot. The Red Sox play like a team that assumes it's going to win, and it keeps being right.
Now the context Chicago actually cares about. Entering this series finale, the White Sox still sat comfortably atop the AL Central, three games clear of Cleveland. That cushion is the reason a game like this hurts more than the scoreboard suggests. First-place teams are supposed to close out games where they lead five times. This one, Chicago couldn't.
My read: the AL Central lead can survive one gut-punch in early August, and it should. But if you're a White Sox fan, the worry this morning isn't the standings. It's that you just watched your team meet a genuinely dangerous opponent and give the game away five different ways. Castillo was supposed to steady the rotation, and the bullpen was supposed to protect a late lead. Neither happened, and Boston made them pay for it.
Chicago didn't get outplayed here so much as it refused to finish. The White Sox have two months to prove Thursday was a fluke and not a preview.
