After playing the last couple of series against teams with records even poorer than theirs, the White Sox found themselves back up against a team with actual playoff aspirations. In their own meandering way, they helped to push those aspirations down by adding a loss to the Mariners’ ledger and dealing the mental blow of losing contests to the White Sox.
In his third start for the Sox, Anthony Ranaudo continued the trend of allowing more runs with each successive outing by yielding six on the night. The scoring started early, letting up a pair in the first, cruising for a bit — retiring nine straight Mariners — before Robinson Cano ended the bid for recovery by launching his 29th homerun of the season. When Ranaudo’s third trip through the lineup combined with a Tim Anderson error, the direction of his evening was clear. What was a tie game at the time became a Seattle lead, and Ranaudo would leave the game with the bases loaded for Dan Jennings to clean up and limit the damage. Technically the damage was limited, but Jennings did promptly surrender a base hit, allowing two of his inherited runners to score and pushing the Mariners’ advantage to three runs.
For their part in the scoring, the White Sox got started quickly as well. Three singles and a run preceded the first out recorded, with two more singles and another run coming in the frame. A brief moment of panic was had when Adam Eaton was seen holding his hamstring walking back to the dugout after scoring the game’s first run, but Eaton would remain in the game and show no signs of damage thereafter.
James Paxton threw 90 pitches in his five innings, nearly a third of which came in that two-run Sox first. A six man bullpen was not enough for Scott Servais to worry about dipping into relief help early, but an unfortunate three-run third of an inning for Arquimedes Caminero put the Sox right back into a game they seemed perfectly content to lose control of.
Despite Jennings’ quick hiccup upon entering the game, he was able to get through an inning and third with no earned runs (charged to him, anyway), setting the pace for the rest of the night’s relief squad to go unscored upon as well. Even Matt Albers got in on the effective fun, allowing no runs in his second straight outing, doing what he can to lower that 7.04 post All-Star break ERA.
David Robertson had his patience tested while trying to get his job done in the 9th inning of a tie game. Having retired one, and with Ketel Marte on first with one out, two fans ran on to the field causing a delay. Upon readying himself to resume play, another fan ran out; clear annoyance on the face and in the body language of Robertson announced another delay. After a warm-up pitch or two, Marte took advantage of the confusion in routine by running on Robertson’s next offering to the batter Aoki, getting an excellent jump and putting himself in scoring position. Thankfully, Robertson was able to strike Aoki out, and then get Guillermo Heredia to ground out and end the inning.
The top of th lineup would come up for the White Sox in their half of the 9th. Adam Eaton lead things off with a base hit, his second of the night. Tim Anderson was then tasked with sacrificing him over to second, and did so successfully. The move had the effect of earning Jose Abreu an intentional walk, but Todd Frazier, responsible for knocking in two of the previous runs in the game, laced a game winning single into left field to plate Adam Eaton and earn himself a celebratory shower of…whatever it is they keep in that Gatorade bucket. Frazier came into the night with a .586 OPS in the month, and though both of his hits were singles, I’m sure mentally he could really use a multi-hit, multi-RBI night like this.
Lead Photo Credit: David Banks – USA Today Sports Images