The White Sox made sure they wouldn't get shut out for a second straight night, posting a quick run against Parker Messick.
The rest of the plan needed work. The White Sox were limited to five hits and a walk over the final eight innings, which allowed a couple of Cleveland homers to hold up as sufficient production with a run to spare. The White Sox are now 2-10 against the Guardians in the season series as they'll hope to stave off a sweep on Sunday.
The White Sox strung together three singles over the first four hitters, but while Lenyn Sosa's drive to left bounced off the wall, it looked like Nolan Jones had a chance to catch it long enough to hold Edgar Quero to 90 feet, as he only advanced from first to second. When he got an aggressive secondary lead on Mike Tauchman's line drive to second, it left him without a chance to scramble back to the bag. The rally ended with a 4-6 double play, and they didn't have a chance with runners in scoring position with fewer than two outs the rest of the game.
Davis Martin pitched relatively well, but his night was made harder than it had to be. He should've completed a 1-2-3 first inning on 15 pitches when he threw a perfect wipeout curveball to José Ramírez, but Quero tried backhanding the bounce, and it ricocheted away from him into foul territory, and Ramírez reached on the wild pitch that was for our purposes a passed ball.
That mistake ended up adding 14 pitches to Martin's tab. Kyle Manzardo singled and Nolan Jones drew a six-pitch walk to load the bases, and then he fell behind 3-1 to Gabriel Arias before a full-count line drive found Mike Tauchman to leave the sacks packed.
Martin then opened the second by yielding a single to Bo Naylor, and then missed down and in on an 0-1 fastball that was supposed to be elevated to C.J. Kayfus, who opened up and golfed it over the right field wall for all the runs Cleveland needed.
Martin ended up completing five innings of two-run ball on 85 pitches, and probably could've gone six on a night where he didn't have to throw an inning's worth of unnecessary pitches. The solace is that it wouldn't have made a difference, as the White Sox could not get anything going against Messick and three Cleveland relievers. Attempts to force the issue failed as well, with Michael A. Taylor getting thrown out trying to stretch a single into a double to end the fourth inning.
When Jhonkensy Noel came off the bench and hit the first Fraser Ellard pitch he saw for a solo shot in the eighth, it only extended the Guardians' lead to two, but with the Guardians arms retiring 12 of the last 13 batters they faced -- and the lone exception taking the form of a Taylor bunt single -- the margin felt far more substantial.
Bullet points:
*The White Sox have been outscored 17-4 in six games at Progressive Field this year.
*Cleveland pitchers have limited the White Sox to one walk against 19 strikeouts the first two games of this series.
*The Sox have been held homerless in three consecutive games.
