Joe Kelly suffered his second blown save in as many days, although this one actually came in a save situation.
With the White Sox leading 5-4 entering the ninth inning, Pedro Grifol theoretically had the option of sticking with Kendall Graveman after a 1-2-3 eighth, or going to Reynaldo López since he had freshness on his side. Instead, continuing his pattern of handing his best relievers the toughest assignment, he gave the ball back to Kelly to face the top of the order, even though Kelly threw 23 pitches in a miserable seventh inning the day before.
In Kelly's defense ... the White Sox defense. There's a chance Kelly picks up the save with only mild stress if Luis Robert Jr. conservatively played Riley Greene's line drive to right center to concede the double. Instead, Robert took a too-direct angle to the ball and couldn't stop it with an awkward sliding attempt. The ball rolled all the way to the wall, and while Greene entertained the thought of an inside-the-park homer, he wisely held up at third.
That passed the baton to Javier Báez, who bounced an up-and-in fastball to a drawn-in Tim Anderson. Ten days ago, Anderson bobbled a chopper in a similar situation to allow the go-ahead run to score, and sure enough, he rushed the exchange once again and had to settle for the out at first.
The misplays by the up-the-middle players the Sox expected to be stars sent the game to extras, where the White Sox went down in order against Alex Lange, even though Lange might not have thrown them a strike with any of his 12 pitches. At best, one was borderline. Andrew Vaughn and Yasmani Grandal each whiffed three times.
The Tigers swung away in the bottom of the 10th because they didn't have the personnel to play small ball, but they still got the productive outs they needed. Jonathan Schoop flied out to deep center field to advance Spencer Torkelson, and following an intentional walk to Akil Baddoo, another fly to deep center by Eric Haase scored Torkelson. The White Sox lost a four-game series they could've very much won.
A split would've been acceptable given the way Dylan Cease pitched in this one. He followed the lead set by Lucas Giolito and Lance Lynn by issuing too many walks, although the Tigers did a better job at forcing them. They dragged out at-bats with 29 foul balls, the highest-ever total in a Cease start by two, which is evidence of an arsenal that has lost a bit of its power all over.
They could only damage him in the third inning, but that came in the form of an Akil Baddoo grand slam. Cease had lost the feel for his breaking stuff, and Baddoo came to the plate expecting fastballs. He fouled off the first two, but he timed up the third one, jumping on a high and inside fastball and launching it out to right.
That ended up being the Tigers' only hit with runners in scoring position all game. They let other opportunities go by the boards, although Zack Short came about eight feet from hitting a grand slam in the second inning. Cease hung a 2-2 curveball, but Clint Frazier caught it on the warning track in left.
That allowed the Sox to hang around, even though they could only touch Eduardo Rodríguez with a Romy González solo shot in the second inning.
When Rodríguez departed after six, the White Sox found a way to see a rally all the way through. Will Vest entered and walked Frazier, followed by a Gavin Sheets pinch-hit single through the right side. Frazier should've made it to third, but his decision to check up at second didn't hurt the Sox, because Anderson loaded the bases because Torkelson fell down after gloving his grounder to load the bases, and then Eloy Jiménez muscled a broken-bat fly inside the left-field line off new reliever Jose Cisnero for a two-run double.
Robert followed by hitting a chopper to third base, but Anderson got a great secondary lead and scored on the contact play to tie the game at 4. Jiménez advanced to third, and then came home on Vaughn's sac fly to Baddoo in left that put the Sox ahead. The lead lasted longer than Saturday, but not by much.
Bullet points:
*Jake Burger was robbed of a solo homer to center field by Greene in the eighth inning.
*Garrett Crochet once again struggled with control, issuing three walks and a wild pitch over 1⅔ innings, but Keynan Middleton stranded the two runners he inherited, then threw a perfect sixth.
*Robert went 0-for-5 with three strikeouts and the misplay in center.
*Jiménez hit the two-run double and walked twice in his first game back.
