NEW YORK — Jonathan Cannon made his return to the Chicago White Sox in a tough spot, replacing opener Fraser Ellard with the bases loaded and two outs in the first inning of Wednesday’s game against the New York Yankees.
Cannon struck out Paul Goldschmidt to escape without allowing a run.
The second inning wasn’t as successful. Cannon surrendered a three-run home run to Aaron Judge, the 50th of the season for the slugger, and the Yankees went on to defeat the Sox 8-1 in front of 37,751 at Yankee Stadium. The Yankees hit three home runs on Wednesday, including a second by Judge.
While the Sox have made progress after suffering a modern-day major-league record 121 defeats last year, they couldn’t avoid a third consecutive 100-loss season in 2025. They reached the 100-loss mark Wednesday, falling to 58-100 with four games remaining.
It’s the seventh time in franchise history the Sox have lost at least 100 games in a season.
“It’s definitely a number you don’t want to get to,” Cannon said. “But I think there’s so many positives (this year). When you look around the locker room, look at all the guys here, guys that have had success here throughout the year, I think it’s very exciting.”
The Sox held a 1-0 lead on Wednesday when Miguel Vargas scored on a sacrifice fly to center by Lenyn Sosa in the second inning. But the Yankees jumped ahead with the three-run home run by Judge with two outs in the bottom of the second.
“He’s the best hitter in the game for a reason,” Cannon said. “Just a really good player. Made a bad pitch to him over the plate, and he punished me for it.”
The Yankees added two more runs in the third.
“(Cannon did a) really nice job against Goldschmidt to get us out of that (first) inning in a tough spot, that was huge,” Sox manager Will Venable said. “Just some pitches he left over the plate, obviously a lot of hard contact there over the next two innings. But (Cannon) did a nice job settling down and was pitching to the edges. Throwing strikes and did a nice job.”
Cannon allowed five runs on six hits with six strikeouts and one walk in 4 1/3 relief innings.
“It’s been a frustrating second half for me, but I think that I made some big strides forward with the stuff, and a lot of positives to take away and bring in, if I have another outing this year or into the offseason, to build on into spring training next year,” Cannon said.
“The stuff was probably as sharp as it’s been in a while. Obviously, made a mistake to the best hitter in the game and he punished me for it. But other than that, I thought the change(up) was really good. I thought the sweeper was good, the fastball velo was up. So I think a lot of positives. Obviously, would like to not give up the runs, but I think a lot of good building blocks going into the offseason.”
The right-hander rejoined the club after being recalled from Triple-A Charlotte earlier Wednesday. The Sox initially sent Cannon to Triple A on Aug. 8, recalled him on Sept. 4 and then optioned him again the next day. He is 4-10 with a 5.87 ERA in 21 outings (17 starts) for the Sox this season.
“It’s huge,” Cannon said of having the opportunity to return. “Especially with the Triple-A season coming to an end and not being sure if I was going to get a chance to come back up. Just be able to come up and prove to myself that I could still get outs at this level. It was definitely a confidence boost today, even with the runs, I thought. There were a lot of positives to take away from it.”
Tyler Alexander followed with two scoreless innings, but the Yankees scored three in the eighth against Cam Booser with back-to-back home runs by Trent Grisham (two-run) and Judge.
“I don’t know if you can put it into words,” Venable said of Judge’s impact. “Obviously the on-field performance. I know he’s a leader in the clubhouse. Just makes a huge impact on the organization. Obviously what he does at the plate is special, any mistake you make he makes you pay for it. And you saw that tonight.”
Meanwhile, the Sox couldn’t get much going against Yankees starter Max Fried. The lefty allowed one run on four hits with seven strikeouts and two walks in seven innings.
“Just great stuff and put it exactly where he wanted to,” Venable said. “He was mixing it up, really did whatever he wanted to us. And it was just a really tough assignment tonight.”
An assignment that led to the wrong type of 100 for the Sox.
“I think with 100 losses it’s definitely easy to see this season as a failure, but I think we have a ton of building blocks, a ton of positives to take away in the offseason,” Cannon said. “And look to definitely take a huge step forward next year.”