The White Sox have now lost 19 consecutive starts made by Chris Flexen, but the fact that he even bothers trying his best qualifies as a sort of moral victory.
In a reversal from his recent outings, Flexen got stronger as the game moved along. A couple of hangers turned into doubles that scored a run in the first, and a leadoff double came around to score on less impressive contact in the second, but he allowed just a hit and a walk over his final four innings, and even pitched around a Brooks Baldwin boot. He routinely located the hard stuff high and the slow stuff low, with enough command of his entire arsenal to sequence in ways the Tigers couldn't figure out. He threw a better-than-quality start: 6 IP, 4 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 2 BB, 5 K.
And it didn't matter. For one, the White Sox only scored two runs themselves, although at least they scored them early enough to keep Flexen from suffering a 13th loss on the year. That just required the bullpen to keep the Tigers off the board, and it wasn't one of the good nights.
Fraser Ellard took over in the seventh and walked lefty Parker Meadows with one out. It was especially unfortunate since Ellard was granted a reprieve -- an HBP was overturned when the replay showed the ball hit Meadows' bat -- and Riley Greene compounded the issue by putting runners on the corners.
Grady Sizemore called for Justin Anderson, who's been the White Sox's best reliever of late, but he left a slider over the plate to Matt Vierling, who showed restraint by shooting it through the right side for an opposite-field go-ahead single. Anderson rebounded to strikeout Kerry Carpenter, but his first pitch to Colt Keith went through the right side for another run, making it 4-2.
Meadows then foiled another lefty-lefty matchup in the ninth with a bloop "double" off Jared Shuster that probably should've been an error on somebody, because the ball went in and out of Baldwin's glove in shallow center as Robert slid underneath him. After a strikeout and a walk, Grady Sizemore called for Enyel De Los Santos to face pinch-hitter Jake Rogers, who was then replaced by pinch-hitter Zach McKinstry, and the A.J. Hinch double-pitch worked out in Detroit's favor when McKinstry singled to left for a thoroughly unnecessary run.
The White Sox had a few head-scratching moments besides the bloop double in center. Lenyn Sosa fell on top of Nicky Lopez in shallow left when they collided on a pop-up, but Lopez somehow managed to catch it. Sosa was also caught stealing with runners on the corners and two outs in the second, and it wasn't particularly close, which erased some of the goodwill generated by his single to right field that made it a 2-1 game in the second.
Korey Lee can hold his head high, at least. He went 3-for-4, and two of his hits contributed to the White Sox's two scoring innings. He backed up a Gavin Sheets single with one of his own in the second, which led to Sosa's RBI hit. Two innings later, he came to the plate with runners on the corners and one out and rifled a double to left, tying the game at 2. Alas, the trailing runner was Andrew Vaughn, who couldn't even think about scoring on Dominic Fletcher's medium-range fly to left, and the Sox never scored again.
It wasn't for a lack of traffic, but for a lack of impact. Lee's double was the only extra-base hit of the night, and the team with the worst OBP in baseball isn't going to keep the line moving long enough to make singles and the very occasional walk count. They came into tonight averaging just 3.1 runs per game, and that's going to drop further, ever so slightly.
Bullet points:
*Sosa made a fine stop and long throw from behind third base to end the third inning, so he continues to contain multitudes.
*Jason Foley recorded a three-out save on just four pitches, with his first two dying on the warning track in right and left center.
