After snapping their seven-game losing streak by countering every punch on Tuesday, the White Sox returned to the template they so often employed during the skid -- fall behind early, make it interesting late, but too late to matter.
Tonight, they couldn't stop hitting themselves. They fell behind 8-2 due to a number of mistakes in the outfield, an unimpressive night in run prevention from Iván Nova and a typical cameo by Kelvin Herrera. Despite all that, they were an Oscar Mercado miracle catch in center on a deep drive from Eloy Jiménez away from tying this one up, and maybe then some.
Jiménez, who swung through high fastballs to fall behind 0-2, only to work the count full five pitches later, tattooed a Nick Wittgren fastball deep to left of center. Mercado needed everything to be perfect -- his first step, his line, and the timing of his lunge.
And dammit, he went 3-for-3.
He came down with the ball, back to the infield, to haul in the second out. Jose Abreu, halfway to home for some reason in his second baserunning error of the night, had to retreat to third, so they Sox couldn't even make it a one-run game. Up came Ryan Goins, who also fell behind 0-2 before putting up a fight, but he swung over a changeup in the dirt to end the game.
This game shouldn't have been that interesting, most recently because Danny Mendick pinch-hit for Zack Collins against All-Star lefty closer Brad Hand and swung through three fastballs out of five pitches for the first out. Leury García reached on an infield single, followed by Tim Anderson homer that made it 8-6. Jose Abreu then singled, followed by a lucky walk by Yoan Moncada (a bad ball four call, but that made up for Tuesday night), followed by a bases-loading single by James McCann that severed Hand from the game.
The Sox foreshadowed the late surge the inning before, when Anderson greeted Nick Goody with a single and Abreu hit his 29th homer to make it an 8-4 game. The Sox had two on and one out when Daniel Palka came to the plate, and Palka fouled off four middle-middle pitches before grounding out.
Yolmer Sánchez then flared out to stunt the rally. Basically, the White Sox were decent when the MLB portion of their lineup was at the plate, and struggled otherwise.
- Nos. 1-6: 12-for-27, 6 R, 2 HR, 2 2B, 4 RBI, 2 BB
- Nos. 7-9: 1-for-11, 1 BB, 1 SF
The Sox just had too much to overcome. Iván Nova gave up six runs on 11 hits over 4⅓ innings. He was part the problem, because he only got six swinging strikes on 73 pitches and gave up rockets on all four of his pitches.
But he also received zero help from his defense, Nova included. García took curious routes on four different drives to center and only came away with one catch. He overran a Franmil Reyes missile with crazy action to right-center in the second, and that came around to score.
An inning later, he got turned around on a more traditional slicing drive to left-center off the bat of Carlos Santana, which drove in Oscar Mercado to make it a 3-2 game. Reyes almost pantsed Garcia for the second time on a line drive hit over his head, but he managed to stay with it all the way to his tumbling conclusion for the final out.
In the third, Nova's bid for two outs and nobody on was spoiled when García couldn't successfully break late on a fly to right-center the wind shoved back toward the infield. Palka didn't offer much assistance on that one, nor could he come up with Mercado's sliced line drive to a similar spot that made it a 4-2 game.
Nova then capped off his start with his own problems. He had a shot at doubling off Yasiel Puig after he snared Jason Kipnis' comebacker, but his throw to first didn't lead Abreu back to the bag and ended up near his tangled footwork. Puig took second on the error, then scored when Reyes launched a cutter out to right for his 34th homer of the year and a 6-2 lead.
Kelvin Herrera dug out the rest of the deficit, giving up a two-run, two-out single that scored a pair of inherited runners from Josh Osich in the seventh.
Bullet points:
*Jiménez went 2-for-4 with an RBI double off Cy Young candidate Shane Bieber in the second, and was also hit by a pitch.
*Palka went 0-for-4 with two strikeouts and a double play. He stranded five.
*Collins provided the lone hit from the bottom of the order, going 1-for-3 with a single and a walk in another respectable showing.
*McCann committed a throwing error on an attempt to nab Mercado at second in the eighth, but it was inconsequential.
*Abreu's first baserunning mistake of the game was failing to take second after García got hung up between third and home on a contact play. He extended the rundown long enough for Anderson to take third and negate the out, but Abreu couldn't maximize it despite Daryl Boston's pleading.
Record: 61-78 | Box score | Highlights
