ANAHEIM -- The White Sox concluded a great West Coast journey with a rough finish on Wednesday afternoon at Angel Stadium.
Their 8-2 loss to the Angels dropped them to 3-3 on this trip which started last Friday in San Diego and ended a stretch of three straight road series wins. The South Siders dipped to 17-20 overall within a tightly bunched American League Central, but flew back to Chicago for nine games beginning Friday with a solid team-wide vibe.
“Oh yeah, amazing,” catcher Drew Romo, who walked twice during the team’s second straight loss, said of the road trip. “Best I’ve ever experienced as a team. We have a lot of fun and a lot of talent.”
Wednesday’s setback marked the team’s first defeat by more than four runs since an 8-3 loss to the Rays on April 15. They have been competitive in almost every contest, even the ones they’ve lost, in this 11-7 stretch following a dismal 6-13 open.
“We are in a really good spot,” manager Will Venable said. “Go out West and get three wins against the Padres and these guys, it’s good overall and a couple of those losses were really hard-fought games. Today got away from us a little bit.”
Noah Schultz had allowed three runs on seven hits over his last 17 innings covering three starts entering the series finale, but was touched up by the Angels for five runs in the second inning alone. Schultz entered with a .139 average against (10-for-72) for the 2026 season, giving the White Sox rookie the lowest opponents’ average in the Majors among pitchers with at least 20 innings pitched, according to MLB Network gameday notes.
Batters were just 4-for-43 with 12 strikeouts against his four-seam fastball prior to Wednesday. Travis d’Arnaud connected on a 0-1 four-seamer for a three-run home run and a 3-1 Angels lead in that fateful second. That blast came two pitches after second baseman Chase Meidroth and shortstop Colson Montgomery couldn’t turn a potential inning-ending double play on what would have been a tough finish to a Nolan Schanuel ground ball to second.
“Whether it was the runner got in the way of Colson, legal slide there, nothing concerning,” Venable said. “Just weren’t able to get a slower hit ball. Just weren’t able to turn it.”
“I’m going to have to look at some video, make sure I wasn’t giving away any pitches, wasn’t getting repetitive,” Schultz said. “Thought I was going hard, soft, hard, soft pretty frequently. Just got to sit down, look at some video and make some changes for next week.”
Venable credited the Angels with hitting good pitches from Schultz, who struck out three and walked four while yielding seven runs over 3 2/3 innings and 79 pitches.
“Four walks, he has to be more aggressive in the zone. Just one of those days where he got burned on some pitches,” Venable said. “You gotta give them some credit. Noah continued to work, wound up being more effective in the zone. But one of those days where they beat him.”
“They put good swings on his fastball and after that we made some adjustments and he did good,” Romo said. “I thought he executed well. That’s how you have to define your success. He had a good plan, executed his pitches, but the enemy has a say and they went out and took good swings.”
Seattle, Kansas City and the Cubs are the three enemies awaiting the White Sox at Rate Field, before they travel to Seattle and San Francisco for their third West Coast road trip before the end of May. Their baseball has been very crisp for close to three weeks, whether it’s offense, starting or relief work, defense or baserunning.
Team-wide energy and work ethic is off the charts for this close-knit crew. But Wednesday’s game was one even a team battling toward consistency and a southpaw showing glimpses of mound dominance since his arrival from Triple-A Charlotte will run into during a 162-game ledger.
“Overall really good,” Venable said. “Excited for the off-day and playing in front of our fans at home.”
“It was a really good road trip,” Romo said. “We were all saying 4-2 sounds a lot better than 3-3. We were fired up to get out here today and win this game and finish 4-2. Facing the Angels here in L.A. and then a good Padres team, I thought we did pretty solid.”