The White Sox were the worst team in baseball when Garrett Crochet wasn't pitching under reduced workloads, but the last two nights have shown why they could very well be the worst team in modern MLB history when the smoke clears. Even on days where the White Sox score enough runs, there are just so many innings for a bad bullpen to cover.
Crochet only threw four innings, more due to a glitch in his control than the White Sox's guidelines. The White Sox tied the game at 1 before he left, but despite three decent innings from Touki Toussaint, the game still managed to get away from the Sox in another disastrous eighth. John Brebbia retired just one of the seven batters he faced, Jared Shuster allowed one of his inherited runner to score, and a competitive game was once again kicked out the range of a save situation.
The White Sox have now lost 19 consecutive games.
Brebbia erased a leadoff walk to Royce Lewis with a double play, but then he walked Carlos Santana and gave up a single to Ryan Jeffers that put runners on the corners, and that's what started tonight's fade. Willi Castro's two-run single on the 13th pitch of a battle with Brebbia is what iced it. Two more singles added one more run, and the White Sox have been outscored 81-38 in the eighth inning alone this year.
The solace is that the White Sox probably would've lost even if Brebbia pitched a 1-2-3 inning, because the offense could only muster three hits and two runs, one of which was a gift.
Bailey Ober took a no-hitter past the halfway point, but he had problems with Korey Lee. Lee walked on four pitches the first time up, and then he came to the plate with Gavin Sheets on first (leadoff HBP) and two outs in the fifth. Ober threw a middle-middle fastball on an 0-1 count, and Lee sliced it to right field for a base hit, but Manuel Margot took an aggressive line that backfired further when sidespin kicked the ball toward the foul tine. Sheets scored from first, and Lee cruised into third with an RBI "triple" that tied the game at 1.
Corey Julks repaid the favor in the bottom of the inning by aborting his attempt to charge Austin Martin's line drive too late, and his awkward attempt to block the ball failed. It was originally scored a single and a two-base error, but the scoring was reversed, and Lee singled Martin home to give the Twins a 2-1 lead.
(That was only the first embarrassing misplay of the inning. Toussaint had a chance to end the inning when he stepped off the mound on an early Lee jump, but fired wide of second when Lee had already started pulling up to surrender.)
Brooks Baldwin erased the aftertaste by jumping on a high Ober fastball and sending it ober the right field wall for his first career homer, tying the game at 2. Alas, the White Sox had nothing else in store, so Max Kepler's solo shot off Toussaint in the seventh inning ended up deciding the game before Brebbia broke down.
Crochet's four innings weren't pretty, but they were effective enough. He walked four batters over four innings, including three in the third alone, but that only cost him in efficiency. As far as damage went, Ryan Jeffers' second-inning solo shot was the only thing on the board. It was a 44-degree fly ball to left field that kept drifting, drifting, drifting until it cleared the wall and landed in the first row.
Bullet points:
*Only six teams in MLB history have lost 20 consecutive games.
*Lee ended up reached base all three times, Miguel Vargas drew a walk, and Baldwin's homer from the second spot was the only other hit. Spots No. 3-8 went 0-for-21 with an HBP.
