The Chicago White Sox completed a surprise sweep of the visiting Tampa Bay Rays on Sunday with a 4-2 win. With their third straight victory over the Rays, the White Sox have managed to double their 2024 win total within the span of a single weekend series.
Indeed, the White Sox came into this set with a dismal mark of 3-22. Now, however, the South Siders have a modestly less dismal record of 6-22. The Rays, meantime, drop to 13-16 for the year to date, which counts as a highly disappointing first month of the season given that the club is coming off a 99-win campaign in 2023 and has notched five straight playoff berths.
In Sunday's series finale, the Sox completed the unlikely sweep thanks in large measure to Erick Fedde's excellent work on the mound. The 31-year-old right-hander worked 8 1/3 innings, struck out nine against no walks, and surrendered two runs on seven hits. Chicago signed the former Nat out of Korea this past winter, and he's been huge for them thus far. After Sunday's gem, Fedde owns an ERA of 2.60 with 39 strikeouts and nine walks in 34 2/3 innings. Fedde's on a two-year, $15 million contract, and that extra year of control at bargain prices could make him an alluring trade-deadline piece should he keep this up and should the Sox decide to shop him. On offense, the typically light-hitting Andrew Benintendi picked up a pair of hits and drove in two one day after hitting a walk-off homer.
As for the Rays, a team playing an unbalanced schedule in the brutal American League East doesn't need to squander opportunities such as this one, let alone get swept by a team like the White Sox. Coming into Sunday, SportsLine gave the last-place Rays just a 22.3% chance of getting back to the postseason. It's still early, of course, but permitting a three-win team to sweep you is a troubling turn of events.
The White Sox, meantime, will put their freshly minted three-game win streak on the line against the Twins on Monday.
