The White Sox entered today's game being outhomered 33-14 on the season, so it shouldn't have surprised to see the Twins run up the score further with five homers to the White Sox's zero this afternoon.
And yet it did, if only because the White Sox held a 2-0 lead entering the bottom of the sixth, only to watch the Twins hit those five homers over the remaining three innings -- and they didn't even have to bat in the ninth.
Michael Soroka had to settle for a moral victory, because his best start of the season ended with back-to-back homers by Edouard Julien and Ryan Jeffers on back-to-back pitches to start the sixth. Tanner Banks ended up taking the loss after allowing three singles to the three batters he faced, and although Jordan Leasure ended up briefly stalling the uprising by stranding Banks' two inherited runners with the three outs of the sixth, John Brebbia gave up a solo shot to Julien in the seventh, and Steven Wilson gave up another pair of consecutive homers in the eighth.
The White Sox offense had to build scoring innings in a more painstaking, handcrafted fashion, and while they managed to cross the plate in three different innings -- a laudable feat for this team -- they also loaded the bases in those three innings, so it was fair to expect a crooked number along the way.
In the second, they packed the sacks on a walk and two singles against Simeon Woods Richardson, but while Kevin Pillar's sac fly brought in the game's first run, Paul DeJong and Korey Lee both struck out.
In the fourth, the White Sox scored only one run on four hits, which is tough to do without a double play. Alas, Andrew Vaughn's double (the only White Sox extra-base hit of the day) came with the bases empty, and while DeJong's two-out single scored him, subsequent base hits by Lee and Nicky Lopez merely loaded the bases, and Danny Mendick tapped into a 1-3.
Their last opportunity came in the ninth, when Pedro Grifol lobbied for a crew chief review to overturn a double play, and a Mendick walk and a Gavin Sheets HBP loaded the bases with one out. Eloy Jiménez came to the plate as the tying run, but Rocco Baldelli brought in Griffin Jax, who had Jiménez chasing from the start. Jiménez struck out, and while Robbie Grossman reached when Carlos Santana tumbled over his grounder to the right side to make it 6-3, Vaughn grounded out on a first-pitch slider to end the game.
The White Sox ended their 0-7 road trip to Philadelphia and Minneapolis having given up at least six runs in all seven games, but Soroka wasn't the big part of the problem this time. He skirted trouble in the first when Max Kepler's hard liner found Lopez at second base to strand two, but he settled in to allow just a two-out walk and a one-out single over the next four innings.
There still isn't anything to suggest sustainability. Soroka didn't record a single whiff over 68 pitches, he's up to seven homers over 29 innings, and the two hardest-hit balls he allowed were lineouts to the right side of the infield. For at least one day, his ERA went in the right direction, from 7.50 to 6.83.
Bullet points:
*In a reversal from Wednesday's loss by the same score, the White Sox went 3-for-13 with runners in scoring position and stranded 12, while the Twins only went 1-for-4. That's the value of the Five-Homer Gambit.
*Herb Lawrence had been tracking this trend, and the White Sox indeed fulfilled the prophecy by sequencing losing streaks of four, five, six and seven games around individual wins. If this pattern holds, the White Sox will win Friday, but then run their record to 4-30.
*Andrew Benintendi pinch-hit for Kevin Pillar and played center field instead of Dominic Fletcher. He struck out.
