HOUSTON -- Miguel Vargas sat at his locker following the White Sox's 4-3 loss to the Astros Thursday night at Daikin Park sporting torn leggings underneath his uniform pants and scraped up, slightly bloody knees on both sides.
Don’t forget the jersey top, covered in dirt from a night of productive action for the White Sox third baseman from the first inning moving forward.
“I just got a text from my mom saying, ‘I don’t clean that,’” said Vargas with a laugh, referring to his jersey.
Vagas’ postgame look is emblematic of why so many people enjoy watching this 2025 White Sox team. They play hard, they are extremely gritty, they fight until the end, and even with a closer on the mound in Josh Hader, entering with a 1.29 ERA and 17 saves, there’s nothing assumed.
Mike Tauchman homered to lead off the ninth against Hader, and Vargas’ second double and third extra-base hit of the night with two outs and an 0-2 count missed by inches of going out to left as the game-tying blast. The White Sox (23-46) ultimately lost their quest for a first series win in Houston since July 1-3, 2016.
There was a lot of pride spoken of by manager Will Venable and visible throughout the White Sox clubhouse. But here’s the tricky part about this young and developing group: Pride and moral victories simply aren’t enough.
“You’re starting to feel our reaction to these are no longer, ‘Way to go, we competed,’” Venable said. “It’s, ‘We’re upset that we didn’t win the game.’ That’s the reflection of the growth of this club and I think that’s what you earn by playing good baseball.”
“We are now in a better position than what we were before,” said Vargas, who added a triple, a walk and two runs scored to his ledger. “Being at the point where we are just discussing about winning a series or we are going to sweep guys, it’s a good thing to have. I’m proud of this group of guys, the mindset they have. We just need to keep going.”
Rookie catcher Edgar Quero finished with three singles and two RBIs, driving in two runs against Framber Valdez (7-4), who allowed seven hits in five innings but also struck out 12. In the short time he’s been in the Majors, the switch-hitting Quero is hitting .391 with nine RBIs against left-handers and is 5-for-6 against Valdez.
Fellow rookie Grant Taylor followed up his scoreless Major League debut Tuesday with another scoreless frame in the eighth inning. But this outing was a bit different than his 1-2-3 effort during the series-opening victory.
Yainer Diaz and Christian Walker singled to start the frame, but Jake Meyers lined out, Victor Caratini struck out and Cam Smith grounded out to strand the two. Caratini was the first career strikeout for Taylor, who didn’t top 100 mph as he did with six pitches Tuesday, but he still fanned Caratini with a 98.9 mph four-seamer at the top of the zone.
“Performance-wise I thought it was pretty good for me. It’s awesome to get the two zeros,” said Taylor, who has not given up a run over 12 games between the Minors and Majors since moving to reliever. “Get the first two out of the way. Got to pitch with a little adversity behind me, gave up two hits. So, yeah, it’s good going into that next series.”
The White Sox hit the ball hard, with seven connections checking in with 100+ mph exit velocities, per Statcast. Not all of them fell in safely. They also had good approaches, as they’ve been featuring for the past four to five weeks, although not all the approaches turned out successful results.
Over five at-bats, Austin Slater saw 35 pitches in total. He also struck out five times, including taking a called third strike in the ninth from Hader for the final out.
“Good at-bats,” said Venable of Slater. “Feel really good about where he’s at, but just kind of a tough day.”
Venable feels good about where the White Sox are at overall, as he should. The same goes for the entire roster. But they clearly want more and won’t settle for good enough.
“No one’s satisfied,” said White Sox starter Davis Martin, who struck out five and allowed four runs over six innings while falling to 2-7. “It’s a young team, it’s a learning team that isn’t satisfied. We want to win these games, we want to win these series.”