Despite a lineup so compromised by injury and illness that batting Yasmani Grandal leadoff struck Tony La Russa as a half-decent idea, the White Sox managed to score five runs in a game started by Kevin Gausman, who entered the game as a potential Cy Young favorite.
Two problems:
No. 1: They needed to score six runs, because Lucas Giolito's slider betrayed him over and over again in the fifth inning.
No. 2: They should've scored six runs, but Danny Mendick was cut down at second on what should've been an easy Grandal sac fly before Reese McGuire crossed the plate.
So the White Sox sagged below .500 once again, while coming up with new ways to expand the genre of disappointing.
A lot of Sox fans would have left the team for dead after Giolito gave up four runs in the bottom of the fifth, turning a 3-2 lead into a 6-3 deficit. But when Trevor Richards started the sixth in relief of Gausman, the Sox wasted no time applying pressure. Gavin Sheets and Adam Engel singled, and Reese McGuire dropped a double in between Goerge Springer and Teoscar Hernandez in right center to score Sheets. Josh Harrison then drew a walk that loaded the bases.
Up came Mendick, who hit a chopper to the left side. With Engel running home from third, the only out was to second, and both teams were happy to trade a run for an out, especially since the Sox had one more out to spare.
Grandal then appeared to use it with a fly ball to left field. It wasn't quite deep enough to ever consider a homer, but it was deep enough to rule out a throw home. McGuire jogged home...
...until he had to run home, because he noticed that Lourdes Gurriel's throw from left field stood a chance at beating Mendick to second. It did, and Mendick was tagged out about a step and a half before McGuire touched home. That run didn't count, and nobody else crossed the plate for that matter, either.
It wasn't for a lack of opportunities. Harrison and Mendick started a two-out rally in the eighth, but Grandal grounded out on the first pitch to cap off an 0-for-5 night from the leadoff spot (it should've been 0-for-4, but still). Likewise, Andrew Vaughn and José Abreu opened the ninth inning with singles off Jordan Romano, but Jake Burger rolled over a first-pitch slider and bounced into a 5-4 double play that eliminated the tying run from scoring position.
The moral of the story: The White Sox simply aren't good enough to give away runs that would have crossed the plate 999 times out of 1,000, especially when Giolito has an off night.
Through four innings, Giolito only struggled with a two-batter sequence in the second, when Hernandez doubled off the wall in right center and Alejandro Kirk followed with a homer on a hanging changeup to give Toronto a 2-1 lead. Otherwise, he more or less asserted his usual form entering the fifth inning.
Toronto applied pressure with one out in the fifth, as George Springer dropped a single to right field, and Bo Bichette hopped a double over the side wall to put runners on second and third. Up came Vladimir Guerrero Jr., and while Giolito fell behind 2-0, he struck him out with three unhittable pitches -- a slider that hung inside, a fastball the upper inside corner of the zone, and a diving changeup down and in that Guerrero swung over.
The problem was that Giolito's slider continued to spin on him, and in worse spots. He hung one to Hernandez on a 1-1 count, and while Adam Engel gave it his wall, the ball glanced off his glove for a two-run double and 4-3 lead. Kirk then teed off on a 2-1 slider for his second two-run shot of the game. A Gurriel single chased Giolito from the game, and while Reynaldo López, Aaron Bummer and Kyle Crick combined to keep the Blue Jays off the board, the scorelessness arrived too late.
The White Sox outhit the Blue Jays 13-12, and totaled five extra-base hits. A great night for Vaughn went by the boards. He hit a solo shot off Gausman in the first inning to set the stage for a 4-for-5 night, coming up a triple short of the cycle. Unfortunately, Grandal went 0-for-5 with five stranded ahead of him, and Jake Burger went 0-for-5 with six stranded two batters afterward.
Bullet points:
*While he went 2-for-4 from the ninth spot in his first game replacing Tim Anderson at shortstop, Mendick's Boner will be the defining memory from this one.
*That baserunning mistake also prevented this game from entering Kendall Graveman territory.
*Nobody pinch-hit for anybody because everybody who didn't play is ailing.
*Burger had a diving stab at third, and Abreu properly started a rundown with a runner on third, not letting go of the ball until he ran about 150 feet and forced the baserunner to retreat to third.
