While White Sox pitching took a beating in two of three games against the Giants earlier this week, it was also worth pointing out that the Sox offense got outhomered 13-1. Obviously it wasn't responsible for the "13," but the "1" over three games in their home park was a little too reminiscent of their power output problems in 2022.
Here's an idea of what those games might've looked like had the Sox brought a little bit more power to the proceedings.
Tim Anderson notched four hits and scored four runs, Luis Robert Jr. homered twice and drove in five, Jake Burger continued to crush lefties, and Oscar Colás hit his first career homer ...
... but the White Sox gave up a double-digit run total for the third time in four games, so they still lost in a sizable fashion.
Lucas Giolito gave up 12 hits over four innings, while Jake Diekman and Jimmy Lambert teamed up with Elvis Andrus for a little league grand slam. At least Jesse Scholtens got to make his MLB debut, throwing three innings of one-run ball to make the final few innings easier to watch, because we'd be talking about Hanser Alberto pitching on back-to-back days otherwise.
The White Sox offense grabbed a lead in the top of the first, then regained a 5-2 lead in the third inning, then tied the game at 7 when Giolito couldn't stop hemorrhaging runs. But then Diekman failed to retire four of the five batters he faced, and then Brian Reynolds hit a bases-clearing triple that turned into four bases when Andrus' throw to third skipped past Yoán Moncada, and Lambert wasn't backing him up.
The Pirates pulled 43-year-old lefty Rich Hill after four-plus innings, and runs weren't as easy for the White Sox offense to come by.
That's not blaming the lineup because nine runs on 11 hits and four homers should be adequate. You can point fingers at the pitching.
Giolito got BABIP'd a little bit but he also gave up 10 hard-hit balls, two homers and only struck out three of the 23 batters he faced over four innings. His changeup was his best pitch, but he also gave up a couple homers on it, including a three-run homer to Reynolds that compounded a bloop RBI single by Oneil Cruz, which was perfectly placed behind Anderson and in front of Robert who was shifted to the other gap.
Diekman, who helped out with two scoreless innings during 210100000, went back to not helping. It started with a groundout, but then he gave up a double, two singles through the left side, and then walked Cruz to load the bases. In came Lambert, who hung a second-pitch slider to Reynolds. Even without getting credit for scoring on the error, he still managed to drive in six from the second spot.
That outdid Robert, who drove in five from the second spot. He homered to center off Hill in the second inning to put the Sox ahead 3-2, after which Jake Burger made it a 5-2 game with his own two-run homer). When the Pirates jumped ahead 7-5 on Reynolds' homer, Roberts sliced a fly into the first row of the right field seats to once again score Anderson and tie the game.
The White Sox just couldn't counteract a slam, but at least they made Will Crowe work to close out his three-inning save. Colás crushed a hanging slider 112.2 mph and 416 feet, beyond the wall just left of center, for his first career blast, after which Anderson and Robert teamed up for a third run-scoring hit, just to emphasize that they couldn't be held accountable for what went wrong.
Bullet points:
*The pitch clock continues to make a difference, because this one felt a lot longer than 2 hours and 48 minutes.
*Scholtens threw 58 pitches over three innings, so he won't be available for a couple of days. Still, it was a better rate than the 37 pitches Diekman and Lambert needed for yet another disastrous fifth inning.
*Burger doubled and homered off Hill, so he continues to demolish lefties as part of the DH platoon. He went 0-for-2 against the two right-handed relievers he saw.
*Anderson swiped third base on Hill, and took second base after getting picked off. Meanwhile, Giolito picked off Andrew McCutchen after a first-inning single, so the Sox had the edge in the running game, for what that's worth.
