Whether "Cy Young" or "run," Johnny Cueto continued his quest for support tonight.
He might still get the former after throwing a high-quality six-plus innings, but didn't get the latter. The White Sox were stymied by Logan Gilbert, and another far-from-flawless night in the field helped post the quasi-earned run that ultimately decided the game, even if the Mariners also added insurance late.
Both the records of Cueto and his team dropped to .500, but Cueto deserved better. He allowed his only run in the fourth inning, when Ty France led off with a legit double. He then legitimately advanced to third on Mitch Haniger's deep fly to right.
But then France was awarded the last 90 feet, because Gavin Sheets' throw from right field ended up bouncing into the camera well. Sheets was charged with the error, but that's because Yoán Moncada let it pass under his glove, and Cueto had backed up the wrong angle on the assumption that Moncada could handle ordinary bounces.
Eugenio Suarez then flied out to deep center, which is why the run was earned (it would've been an easy sac fly had France been on third). Perhaps you could say that Cueto should've been more attentive as the last line of defense, and so the ER is perfectly appropriate.
Either way, he didn't deserve everything else. The White Sox were shut out for the fourth time this year despite out-hitting the Mariners 7-6. As you might expect, the Sox contributed mostly singles, and when José Abreu cracked the extra-base hit column with a double with one out in the sixth, he couldn't score on the Sox's only hit with runners in scoring position, as Eloy Jiménez's single to center was too firm. Joe McEwing deployed an obvious stop sign, but Gavin Sheets chased a high fastball to help out Gilbert, then swung through Gilbert's best fastballs of the night. AJ Pollock also chased high heat to end the threat.
Smaller uprisings also died quiet deaths. In the seventh, Adam Engel led off with a single, but was cut down at second by Cal Raleigh. The Sox then mounted a two-out threat against hard-throwing Andres Muñoz an inning later, but Pollock had his second high-leverage strikeout.
The Mariners then rubbed salt in the wound with their own two-out offense. After Reynaldo López issued a two-out walk to Sam Haggerty in the bottom of the eighth, he yielded his first homer of the season to Raleigh that put the game away.
Besides the game -- and a game in the standings -- the Sox also lost Luis Robert, although you can argue that they never really had him. Robert appeared to irritate his troublesome left wrist on a failed checked-swing attempt on a ball that hit his hand. Robert stayed in the game, but he was the opposite of a threat at the plate. He completed the post-plunking plate appearance by standing several feet off the plate, and refused to swing at velocity his next time up. He popped out a slider, releasing the bat with the wrong hand after contact, and then was lifted from the game. The White Sox are calling him day-to-day, but that reads like denial.
Bullet points:
*Romy González bobbled a double-play ball and had to settle for a force at second, and Yasmani Grandal had a passed ball that put Jake Lamb into scoring position after an HBP.
*Elvis Andrus then cut down Lamb at third base on a grounder that was behind him, but still on the left side of second to mitigate the threat.
*The Sox did help out Cueto by stranding the two baserunners he left in the seventh. They managed the threat of a bunt by luring J.P. Crawford into an unproductive flyout, after which Jimmy Lambert struck out Julio Rodríguez and induced a groundout by France.
*Cleveland won, so the Sox are now three back in the Central. They also lost a half-game on the Twins for the time being, as their game against the Yankees was postponed.
