Tuesday’s loss stings a bit for the White Sox (55-90), dropping the series opener to the Rays, 5-4, after coming back in the fifth and sixth from being down three runs. The Good Guys went up against a few old friends tonight at Rate Field. Adrian Houser tore apart the White Sox lineup for the first four innings, striking out nine batters, and Tristan Gray drove in the go-ahead run in the seventh, which the South Siders were unable to recover from.
Yoendrys Gómez looked great in the first inning, sitting
the Rays’ first three batters down in order, including punching out one of their best hitters, Yandy Díaz. The White Sox bats were looking to back him up, too, as they quickly jumped out front in the bottom of the first when Kyle Teel blasted his seventh homer of the season — a 405-foot solo shot out to center off of Houser to take a 1-0 lead.
Houser ended up being able to recover while Gómez fell victim to Junior Caminero and Josh Lowe in the second, who together smacked a double and a home run to take the lead back from the White Sox, 2-1. Yoendrys was able to (briefly) recover as he worked through two outs, but walked Tristan Gray and gave up consecutive singles that plated the third run for the Rays before getting out of the inning, 3-1.
The South Side bats were fairly dead outside of Teel’s dinger, and went nine-up, nine-down for the second, third, and fourth innings. In the meantime, Houser was working through the Chicago lineup with no problem and struck out the side in the fourth.
Gómez looked better after the rally from Tampa, but Richie Palacios added one more to the scoreboard with his first home run of the season —a solo shot to right, making it 4-1. Outside of the two home runs, Gómez was decent and gave up four tallies on five hits, while walking one and striking out five over his five frames of work. Cutting down on round-trippers is really going to be key to his success in MLB.
Finally, the Good Guys showed signs of life at the plate in the bottom of the fifth. Brooks Baldwin drove a deep fly ball to right that just barely missed leaving the park, and seemed to be caught briefly by Lowe, but he wasn’t able to hold on to the ball, and Baldwin wound up with his first triple. Taking advantage of the situation, Chase Meidroth tacked on a run by driving Baldwin in on the next at-bat with a base hit to right, making it 4-2, Rays.
Lenyn Sosa kick-started another rally in the sixth, driving a base hit up the middle, but not before White Sox manager Will Venable was thrown out for arguing balls and strikes for the third time in the game. To be fair, the ump was making some pretty rough ball/strike calls, and the one that ticked him off last in Sosa’s at-bat was definitely out of the zone (numbered three in the below image).
The good news is that Venable’s ejection seemed to spark something in the offense, as not only did Sosa’s base hit cause Tampa to pull Houser out of the game, but the South Siders were able to complete the comeback and tie the game at four. Houser allowed three runs on four hits, but he was mowing batters down in his 5 1/3 innings, with nine Ks against the Sox.
Lefthander Mason Montgomery came on in relief for the Rays and triggered a battle of the Montgomerys. Chicago’s representative won this one and proved to be the superior Montgomery: Colson ripped an RBI double to put the South Siders within one, while Mason was credited with a blown save.
Colson advanced to third on a wild pitch, but Edgar Quero went down on strikes for the second out of the inning — his second K of the night. The Good Guys persevered as Andrew Benintendi kept up his hot streak by driving in the tying run with a base hit to center, 4-4. Benintendi has been absolutely on fire these last two weeks, and continues to be a solid veteran presence in a clubhouse full of rookies who are ready to compete.
Tyler Alexander entered the game for Gómez in the sixth and had a nice 1-2-3 inning to hold the Rays off, but when he returned for the seventh, he got into trouble as Tristan Gray blasted a no-doubter to right field. I’m sure it felt pretty darn good to mash the go-ahead run against your former team, topped off by a clean bat flip. I suppose most of you aren’t familiar with Tristan Gray. He was playing with the White Sox Triple-A Charlotte Knights for the majority of the season (.805 OPS in 72 games) before being dealt to Tampa Bay for Jerry’s favorite: Cash Considerations. It seems that Gray was the one who cashed in.
Alexander would receive the loss in the end, and after this moonshot, the White Sox wasted no time going to the bullpen when things got chaotic. Righthander Steven Wilson came in to secure the final two outs of the inning, making the dinger seem like just a blip, except that the blip hit like a Mack truck, putting the South Siders down one after battling all the way back.
Now trailing one, Chicago fell flat in the seventh and went down in order, but had a chance in the eighth to make something happen. Sosa reached on his second hit of the night, with Montgomery coming up to the plate. If there were ever a time for him to blast one of those monster homers, it would be then. He unfortunately can’t do it every time, and struck out on a low and outside pitch on a 0-2 count, and Quero followed that up by flying out to end the threat. For the most part, the White Sox actually weren’t bad with runners in scoring position (2-for-3), but they still left four on base, and one of those would have really helped in the end.
On the defensive front, the eighth was much cleaner. Wilson worked through Yandy by forcing a groundout, and the Sox turned to the bullpen once again, this time to Fraser Ellard, who mimicked Wilson by coming in to shut the Rays down. Ellard was back in the ninth and struck out Josh Lowe for the first out — his second of the night — but Jake Mangum got a hit that prompted the South Siders to go to Dan Altavilla, who struck out both batters he faced to end the inning and kept the Tampa lead at one.
It was time for the offense to lift up their pitching staff in the bottom of the ninth, and they had the opportunity to take advantage of an error made by the Rays, but they fell flat. Andrew Benintendi battled with a 3-2 count, but ended up flying out on a soft flare to left field for the first out, and Curtis Mead sent one to the wall that looked like it could have been the game-tying home run off the bat, but it sadly stayed in the park. Baldwin reached on a fielding error by Gray at first base, giving the Sox an extra life with Chase Meidroth up to bat. Meidroth smoked a 95 mph line out to second base, which was slightly heartbreaking as Statcast shows that this ball had a .710 xBA — meaning that this ball hit at a similar launch angle and speed is likely a hit more than 70% of the time … pain.
Even though they lost, the White Sox continue to show signs of improvement. Previously, I would have thought that a 4-1 lead would be insurmountable for this team, but they’ve shown they are there to win and have been playing well since the All-Star break. The Good Guys will be back tomorrow and will try to rebound from this loss on Wednesday night. Same time, same place, but stay tuned for the pitching matchup.
