Kansas City Royals at Chicago White Sox: Final Score & Recap
Line Score
| Team | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | R | H | E |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| KC | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 11 | 1 |
| CWS | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 1 | - | 6 | 7 | 0 |
The Story
The Chicago White Sox defeated the Kansas City Royals 6-5 on May 12, 2026, at Rate Field, with the DiamondIQ model's estimate opening at a 58 percent home win probability and closing at 100 percent. The game turned decisively in the bottom of the fifth inning, when the White Sox scored all five of their eventual first-six-inning runs against Kansas City starter Stephen Kolek. Chase Meidroth delivered the biggest single swing of the game, a home run that added 30.0 percentage points of win probability, followed by a Drew Romo home run worth 12.4 points and a Miguel Vargas single that contributed another 12.1 points. That five-run fifth inning erased a two-run Kansas City lead built in the opening frame and fundamentally reordered the contest.
Kansas City mounted a genuine response in the top of the sixth, scoring three runs off Grant Taylor, with a Maikel Garcia single providing the biggest boost of that rally at plus 15.7 percentage points. The Royals pulled within one and kept pressure on through the seventh, but Derek Hill answered in the bottom of the eighth with a home run off Matt Strahm worth 23.3 percentage points, restoring a two-run cushion that Kansas City could not overcome. Hill finished as the top White Sox batter by WPA at plus 23.3 percent with a RE24 of 1.0, while Meidroth posted the highest RE24 among position players at 2.0 and a cumulative WPA of plus 21.3 percent. Vargas added plus 19.3 percent WPA and a RE24 of 1.2 to round out the offensive contributors.
On the pitching side, Bryan Hudson led all pitchers with plus 15.2 percentage points of WPA, followed by Seranthony Domínguez at plus 10.6 and Daniel Lynch IV at plus 8.3, a collective effort that held Kansas City scoreless over the final three innings after the Royals had cut the deficit to one. Chicago finished with seven hits and no errors against eleven hits and one error for Kansas City, converting the cleaner defensive performance and a three-batter sequence in the fifth into a result the DiamondIQ model ultimately assessed as a certainty.