Diamondbacks 4, White Sox 1: One error is all it takes

With the White Sox in an offensive rut, the last thing they needed was an all-night defensive clinic from the Diamondbacks, making it hard to distinguish quality plate appearances from useless ones.

And the last thing they could absorb was an error of their own.

Chase Meidroth's high-and-wide throw gave the Diamondbacks an extra out in the top of the seventh, and they converted with three runs that accounted for the difference on the scoreboard.

Mike Vasil was one out into his sixth inning of bulk relief when he gave up a single to Randal Grichuk. Tim Tawa followed with a slow bouncer to short, which Meidroth charged, fielded and then fired to first. Whether it was a rushed action or a poor grip on a wet baseball, Meidroth's throw sailed on him, and Tawa cleared Miguel Vargas' swipe attempt clearly enough to overturn an out call. That put runners on first and second with just one out, and Will Venable went to the bullpen for Brandon Eisert

Eisert then lost a lefty-lefty matchup to Alek Thomas, who singled up the middle to put Arizona ahead while Tawa took third, and that put him in position to score despite a terrific running catch from Luis Robert Jr. on Jose Herrera's deep drive to center. Geraldo Perdomo then singled home Thomas, and that was all the scoring.

Vasil took the hard-luck loss while setting a career high in innings pitched, blasting past his previous high of four-plus innings against Texas on June 14 by going 5⅓. It was typical Vasil -- one strikeout, no walks, and a reliance on contact ending up in the right place, but however it happened, he spared the bullpen after Shane Smith's two-inning outing the night before.

"Spending as much time as I have in the bullpen with all those guys, and obviously we've ran into a couple injuries so had to be able to get creative," Vasil said. "Tonight for me, it was all about how deep can I go to save my buddies in the bullpen and save those guys and be able to give the team the best chance to win and also flexibility moving forward the rest of the week."

He just needed some offensive support that never arrived. Ryne Nelson set the agenda early by striking out five over the first two innings, but even as the Sox started building better at-bats, they weren't rewarded for them, outside of a Robert solo shot in the second that answered Ketel Marte's 3-0 ambush of Jordan Leasure in the first inning.

"That’s what you want to do," Robert said via interpreter. "Today, I felt like as I used to feel in the past. Those were the kind of pitches I wasn’t missing before. It was good to be able to put the bat there to hit the ball and get that result. I think that was the part I’ve been missing this season."

Then again, Robert's dinger could've been the back end of a back-to-back blasts with Ryan Noda, except Jake McCarthy stole a homer from him by taking it back from over the right field wall, and that was characteristic of the remainder of the evening.

"Pitching and defense wins games and they did a great job defending," said Will Venable. "Any ball we did hit hard, they caught. Made some really nice plays and that was the difference. You've got to turn balls in play into outs and they did a great job tonight."

Alek Thomas took over the fifth inning, first making a sliding catch on an Edgar Quero line drive to the right center gap, then running down Mike Tauchman's deeper fly to the warning track to strand two runners. McCarthy added another good warning track catch on Michael A. Taylor's deep fly in the bottom of the seventh.

Then the infield took away the White Sox's last gasp. Mike Tauchman greeted Juan Morillo with a double, and Andrew Benintendi drew a walk two batters later to bring Miguel Vargas to the plate. Vargas, as he is wont to do, worked the count full before pulling a borderline sinker at the bottom of the zone 102.5 mph to the left side. Whether he expected the ball to shoot past Tawa or whether Vargas thought Tawa might've caught it on the fly, neither guess would've been correct. Tawa instead smothered the second hop while Vargas hesitated briefly on his break out of the box, and that delay gave him and Marte enough time to turn a 5-4-3 double play that effectively sealed the game.

Bullet points:

*White Sox pitchers avoided issuing a walk for the third time this season, although May 7 against the Royals is the only time they neither walked nor plunked a batter. Vasil ended up hitting Ildemaro Vargas on the foot in the second inning, causing him to later leave the game with a fracture of his fifth metatarsil.

*Tauchman went 1-for-4 with a strikeout in his return to the lineup, and was thisclose to having two doubles.

*I missed this because I had to switch to radio for the bottom of the seventh, but Marte was in tears during the pitching change:

And after the game, Torey Lovullo explained it was caused by a fan's heckling:

Record: 25-55 | Box score | Statcast