CHICAGO — Nobody would call the Yankees an unstoppable force, but they certainly ran into an immovable object on Monday night.
The result?
Helping the White Sox in their quest to avoid infamy.
A blowout may have been expected in a game pitting the team that came into the night tied for the best record in baseball against the team that had the majors’ worst record (by 16 games) and was trying to avoid company with the 120-loss, 1962 Mets.
But it was the White Sox doing the drubbing, handing the Yankees an embarrassing 12-2 loss in front of 22,815 at Guaranteed Rate Field.
“Most of us have been around long enough to know that every night you set foot on a big league diamond, you’re capable of losing, you’re capable of winning,” manager Aaron Boone said before the game.
The Yankees (70-50) wasted plenty of prime chances early to do damage — on the way to going 2-for-18 with runners in scoring position and stranding 16 men on base — while the White Sox (29-91) pounded out 18 hits for a season-high 12 runs.
Luis Gil labored through four innings, needing 98 pitches to record 12 outs (on a night when the bullpen was already thin) while allowing four runs as he struggled with his command.
The White Sox broke the game open in the seventh inning when they scored six runs off Enyel De Los Santos to give their fans a rare night to enjoy.
To add injury to insult, Jazz Chisholm Jr. left the game with a left elbow injury in the seventh , two innings after diving head-first into home plate on what was otherwise the Yankees’ highlight of the night.
Chisholm will undergo imaging on Tuesday.
Through four innings, the Yankees were 1-for-11 with runners in scoring position and had stranded nine men on base.
Those struggles began in the first inning after Alex Verdugo and Juan Soto walked and Aaron Judge put the Yankees up 1-0 with an RBI double.
White Sox rookie left-hander Ky Bush got the next three batters — Giancarlo Stanton, Austin Wells and Gleyber Torres — each to pop up on a combined six pitches to avoid further damage.
In the second, Bush walked Verdugo to load the bases with one out, but then got Soto to pop out and Judge to fly out to the warning track — a few feet shy of what would have been a grand slam for career homer No. 300 — to end the threat.
Bush invited trouble again in the fourth by walking Anthony Volpe and DJ LeMahieu.
But Verdugo gave him some help by popping out on an ill-advised bunt attempt before Soto got robbed of a hit on a diving stop by first baseman Gavin Sheets.
The White Sox then intentionally walked Judge to load the bases with two outs, which worked perfectly as Bush got Stanton to strike out on three pitches to get out of the jam.
In all, the Yankees drew seven walks off Bush but only one of them came around to score.
Gil was handed a 1-0 lead before taking the mound and quickly handed it back as the White Sox went ahead 2-1.
Verdugo saved Gil from the inning getting even worse as he threw out Sheets at the plate on a single by Dominic Fletcher to end the inning.
Korey Lee led off the fourth inning with a home run on a 2-0 slider down the middle.
Fletcher followed with a double off Gil and came around to score two outs later on Nicky Lopez’s single that made it 4-1.
The Yankees made it 4-2 in the fifth when Chisholm scored from second on an infield single by Volpe.
But he hurt his elbow diving into home, forcing the Yankees to hold their breath heading into Tuesday.
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