Rick Renteria pulled out most of the stops in an attempt to halt the White Sox's three-game skid skid. He allowed Lucas Giolito to throw 119 pitches to get through six. He used Garrett Crochet on consecutive days, which is something he only did twice at Tennessee, and to subpar results. He turned to Codi Heuer for an inning after he threw two yesterday. Quibble over the wisdom of Giolito's start in particular, but the White Sox got the game into the ninth tied at 2.
But then came the ninth. He had both Alex Colomé and Gio González warming, and Renteria chose González. After the game, he said Colomé only had an inning in him tonight, and Renteria thought it'd be better deployed in the 10th.
Of course, the 10th inning never arrived tonight, and the losing streak is four games, but saving Colomé isn't the terrible thought it usually is. With extra innings rules being what they are, the chance of Colomé having a lead to protect in the 10th is greater than the standard season, with Tuesday night's game a very fresh example.
The problem is that González had one out, the bases clear, and lefty-mashing Jordan Luplow at the plate with a 3-0 count. Instead of conceding the at-bat and picking on the eighth- and ninth-place hitters who aren't built specifically to destroy pitchers like him, González tried to get back into the at-bat with a 3-0 fastball, 90.7 mph and right down the heart of the plate.
Luplow did what he was supposed to do, and now the White Sox are in second place and staring down the barrel of a potential sweep at the hands of the Tribe with Zach Plesac looming.
Had González pitched around Luplow and still suffered the loss, then I'd place the primary blame on Renteria. As it played out, the player's thought process was worse than the manager's. Either way, the decisions by Renteria and González are magnified because the White Sox offense only mustered four hits, with four times as many strikeouts. James McCann wore the golden sombrero, and Luis Robert and Adam Engel had matching silver ones.
They did make Shane Bieber work. The presumptive Cy Young winner allowed only one unearned run on two hits over five innings while striking out 10, but he issued three walks, threw two wild pitches, and ran his pitch count to 98. (The run could go either way, because José Abreu reached on a smoked grounder José Ramírez couldn't handle.)
Giolito was equally inefficient, thanks to a 36-pitch third inning that required Giolito to record five outs. McCann was slow to find a pop-up behind him, and Anderson bobbled a potential double-play ball and had to settle for the fielder's choice. He somehow pitched through that, but he suffered damage earlier and later. Santana factored in both times. He hit a solo shot in the second, then nubbed an opposite-field gork shot through the vacated left side that pushed a runner to third, setting up a Franmil Reyes sac fly in the sixth.
Giolito did rack up 22 whiffs and 11 strikeouts, so his stuff looked crisper than it had his previous two times out. The hope is that the extra day off between the end of the regular season and the start of the postseason will help diminish any hangover from the pitch count.
The White Sox were able to erase the two leads Cleveland took on Giolito's watch. In the fourth, Abreu reached on the aforementioned hot shot, took third on Eloy Jiménez's double to left, then scored on Edwin Encarnación's groundout. Jiménez advanced to third on the play, but was stranded by strikeouts of McCann and Robert.
In the eighth, Yoán Moncada greeted rookie phenom James Karinchak with a rifled shot over first base and into the right-field corner, which he legged out for a triple. Abreu then hit a missile to the right-center gap for a sac fly that scored Moncada to tie the game. Encarnación managed to keep the inning alive thanks to a goofy throwing error by Cesar Hernandez, and his pinch runner Yolmer Sánchez took second on a wild pitch, but McCann again struck out to strand the runner.
Bullet points:
*Abreu made a couple of nice plays in the field, starting a 3-6 double play, then snagging a hot shot with a barrel roll for a 3-1 putout.
*Madrigal was charged with an error when an otherwise harmless Ramírez grounder hit the lip and jumped up on Madrigal to extend Heuer's eighth inning. Heuer then walked Santana to make it a legit jam, but escaped with a three-pitch strikeout of Reyes.
*Crochet looked no worse for the wear, getting two strikeouts and a flyout.
*McCann is 6-for-37 with 15 strikeouts in September, Robert is in an 0-for-28 skid with 15 strikeouts, and Moncada has two hits in his last 33 at-bats. Oddly, both hits are triples.
Record: 34-22 | Box score | Highlights
