Thanks to some early offensive fireworks, it wasn’t immediately obvious to newcomers which team was fighting for the best record in the American League Friday night in Cleveland, and which was straining for a reason to keep going, but these things have a certain, brutal way of self-correcting.
Despite staking themselves to a pair of early two-run leads, the White Sox were quickly overwhelmed by the division-leading Indians, and dropped to a season-worst nine games below .500. They’re 49-72 since their high point of the year.
1. Trevor Bauer, whom the Indians need to pull off a convincing impression of a No. 2 starter in the wake of injuries to Carlos Carrasco and Danny Salazar, got jumped on early by Sox hitting. Tim Anderson lined a high fastball into the right-center cap that bled all the way to the wall with one out in the first inning. But his quick footwork to turn the play into a triple was quickly made irrelevant when Melky Cabrera yanked another heater to right for his 13th home run of the year to put the Sox up 2-0. After the Indians tied it in the fourth, Bauer was burned once more the very next frame when Avisail Garcia fought off an inside fastball for a high fly that dropped just over the fence in the right field corner for another two-run shot. Bauer would take another economical outing against the Sox into the eighth inning, but at the least they made his ERA jump. Garcia is now slugging over .500 for the second half.
2. That would be the last crest of the evening for Chicago, and things became all the way broken really quickly. After twirling three shutout innings to open the night, Miguel Gonzalez had something looking like a cutter launched out to right for a game-tying bomb from Indians’ breakout star Jose Ramirez to knot the game 2-2. Gonzalez has to challenge hitters with mediocre stuff a lot to get through the night, so one mistake usually doesn’t doom his night, but he wound up being chased with just one out in the fifth. After giving up a leadoff double to Carlos Santana, he was completely lost, hitting Jason Kipnis and bouncing a wild pitch to push them both into scoring position. Francisco Lindor scored Santana on a sacrifice fly, and Mike Napoli bounced a slider through a drawn-in infield–which backfired for the umpteenth time–to tie the game and end Gonzalez’s night.
3. The White Sox are not teeming with bullpen depth, but it can’t be said they didn’t pull out some guys with recent success. Juan Minaya had yet to give up a run in his major league career before Coco Crisp ripped a two-run double into the right field corner off him to put the Indians up 6-4 in the fifth. Dan Jennings, who had been looking as good as his pristine ERA for the all of the season’s second half, came on to relieve in the sixth after the rookie gave up a one-out single to Santana. After striking out the lefty Kipnis, Jennings couldn’t get out any of the next five batters, with a booming Ramirez double and a pair of jammed singles from Napoli and Crisp all bringing in runs to put the game out of reach.
4. Adam Eaton crashed into the center field wall making a running catch on a Roberto Perez fly ball to start the top of the sixth. He had to be helped off the field and was replaced by Leury Garcia. He is undergoing the concussion protocol but really made a full body collision with the wall, so injuries to his shoulder and knee are also distinct possibilities.
5. The White Sox have now lost six in a row (another loss Saturday would match their season-high) and nine of their last 13. They have had a losing record in every month this season save for April.
They have nine games left in 2016.
Team Record: 72-81
Next game is Saturday at 6:10pm CT at Cleveland on CSN
Lead Image Credit: Ken Blaze // USA Today Sports Images