With two outs in the sixth, Josh Smith squared up a 90 mph Sammy Peralta fastball at the letters for a two-out RBI single, plating the fourth Rangers run of the night.
Since it's been three weeks since the White Sox offense exceeded four runs in a nine-inning ballgame, that felt like checkmate. Good luck proving that it wasn't.
As possibly the worst major league offense since the outbreak of the Falklands War, the White Sox put up a compelling early fight against two-time All-Star Nate Eovaldi. Andrew Vaughn and Nicky Lopez spaced out their second-inning singles so that Eloy Jiménez could move the former to scoring position with a swinging bunt before the latter. And Luis Robert Jr. led off the following inning by hanging a first-pitch curveball out to dry on a 113 mph line to the left field corner, building a doomed 2-1 lead.
But you don't string together multiple double-digit losing streaks for the first time in franchise history without making early-game feistiness feel as empty as late, false hope rallies. Jiménez driving a grounder past Corey Seager in the five-six hole was the only Sox hit after the third inning, and the Sox offense's primary accomplishment was making a game they never controlled show up in their count of blown leads on the season.
Less than two weeks ago, Chris Flexen completed six strong innings against the Pirates on just 78 pitches. Every Flexen start is a late night walk on an uncleared trail to an unknown location. But to see him reaching back for his 79 pitch of the night to induce a hard Jonah Heim one-hopper up the middle, as a fine play by Lopez stranded two runners to end just the third inning, signaled pretty clearly that we were not witnessing a 90th percentile outcome Wednesday night.
Seager's first inning laser of a solo homer was the second of eight balls hit 100 mph or harder off Flexen in 4 2/3 innings of work. As much as I understand the nature any of his starts, good and bad, the preponderance of hard contact seem to stem from Flexen's cutter lacking its usual juice. Without the ability to make hitters guard against the elevated gloveside quadrant, Seager seemed especially enabled to demolish anything belt-high or lower. His leadoff double in the fifth challenged Flexen and the Sox defense to execute at a letter-perfect level to protect an impossibly slim one-run lead.
Which is to say that by the end of the fifth, two runs had scored, Robert had been charged with a throwing error and Flexen was out of the game, and lined up to see his team lose a game he started for the 14th consecutive time.
The deficit prompted Pedro Grifol to turn to the non-leverage portion of a bullpen that has almost as many blown saves (26) as the team has wins (27), with predictably putrid results. Only Justin Anderson made a night of it, recording four outs without allowing a baserunner, which merely signals that he probably will be in a different class of Sox relievers the next time a game like this comes around in the next week or so.
Bullet points:
*Flexen has a 5.73 ERA during over his last 14 outings while average five innings per outing. Like the White Sox at large, he has not been good, but the remarkable consistency with which a below average performance has produced a loss every time that stands out.
*Jiménez last homered on May 14, back when Braden Shewmake, Bryan Ramos and Tim Hill were all on the roster.
*Jared Shuster was tagged for six runs on two homers in the eighth, matching the number of earned runs he had allowed since June 1.
*The White Sox had no double-digit losing streaks from 2014-2022. Now they've had three since last April. What a country!
