When immediately assessing the White Sox's signing of Tim Hill back in December, his wretched performance against right-handed hitters was an obvious weakness.
Three games into the season, the White Sox are 0-3, and two games have swung on Hill losing lefty-righty matchups.
On Saturday, he gave up a game-tying single to Carson Kelly in with two outs in the seventh inning, and the Sox eventually lost in 10. Today, he came in to face lefty Parker Meadows in the ninth inning with two outs and the game tied at 2, but but A.J. Hinch countered with Andy Ibáñez, and the pinch-hitter foiled the move with a go-ahead single through the left side for the decisive run. Detroit leaves Chicago with a sweep, with every game settled by one run.
Ibáñez's single produced the only run not scored by a solo homer. Korey Lee took Jack Flaherty deep in the third, Erick Fedde gave up a pair of homers on lazy sliders in the fourth and fifth innings, and Paul DeJong was able to shoot Andrew Chafin over the right-field wall to give both starters no-decisions.
Fedde's White Sox debut opened in a promising fashion, as he opened with three strikeouts over three efficient, scoreless innings, giving up a pair of harmless two-out singles. His cutter broke some bats, and he had the ability to run the ball in both directions with his two-seamer and slider.
But his execution started to suffer in the middle innings, and while he was able to limit the damage, a 32-pitch fourth shortened his lifespan, and he had to settle for a mixed bag: 4⅔ IP, 5 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 1 BB, 7 K, 2 HR
The White Sox had Flaherty on the ropes early, but once he and Jake Rogers saw that home plate umpire Dan Merzel was awarding some comically low strikes, the Detroit battery kept mashing that button. White Sox hitters struck out 11 times, but seven of them were backwards Ks. Flaherty retired the last nine batters he faced, and DeJong's homer and a Kevin Pillar walk represented the only baserunners over the final five innings.
Making matters worse, Eloy Jiménez pulled up halfway down the line on a grounder to the left side in the sixth inning. He left the game with what the White Sox are calling left adductor soreness, and Gavin Sheets finished out the game for him.
Bullet points:
*DeJong threw away an easy 4-3 ball with two outs in the sixth, which extended the inning by several ... seconds. Dominic Fletcher collected the ball and fired it home in plenty of time to nail Mark Canha, who couldn't slide because of the bat in the basepaths, resulting in an awkward bump with Lee at the plate.
*The White Sox went 0-for-6 with runners in scoring position.
*Michael Kopech stood out, retiring all five batters he faced to get the game through eight, including three strikeouts.
