Things looked pretty bleak for Sale through the first three innings. After allowing a solo homer to Jose Altuve in the first, he was touched for three in the third thanks for a rally started by the bottom of Houston’s order and a little small ball.

Danny Worth led off the inning with a walk, Jake Marisnick tried to sacrifice him to second and wound up with a bunt single, and after George Springer’s long flyout advanced Worth to third, he scored on a safety squeeze bunt by Marwin Gonzalez. Back-to-back singles by Altuve and Carlos Correa followed and Sale and the Sox trailed 4-2.

Thankfully for the Sox, Doug Fister couldn’t find the strike zone all afternoon and, thanks almost entirely to Dioner Navarro (that’s designated hitter Dioner Navarro to you), and J.B. Shuck (that’s Home Run Hitter J.B. Shuck) he wasn’t long for the game.

Navarro drove home the first two runs of the game on a triple that maybe, possibly would’ve definitely been a triple anyway had Springer not bobbled the ball that was driven out to right-center field, scoring Todd Frazier and Alex Avila. After Shuck hit his third home run of the season to pull the Sox within a run, Navarro came up again in the fifth, this time with the bases loaded and two outs against a laboring Fister, and drove a two-run single to left field to give the Sox the lead for good and end Fister’s day.

The White Sox margin of victory could’ve been even more comfortable if not for a couple of baserunning gaffes. Navarro was thrown out at home after the aforementioned triple when he was off on contact on a ground ball to third base by Shuck. Adam Eaton found a way to get thrown out at both third base AND home plate in the same game. He slipped while rounding third base on a single by Brett Lawrie in the third inning, tried to score anyway, and was thrown out easily, and then tried to take third base on a ball in the dirt in the fifth only to be gunned down. That’s three TOOTBLANs in five innings for the White Sox, if you’re scoring at home.

After reliever Michael Feliz basically shut down the Sox for three innings following Fister’s departure, saving Houston’s bullpen a lot of extra work, the Sox gave Sale some rare insurance. Avisail Garcia’s two-out single in the eighth was the only baserunner allowed by Feliz (he struck out seven), but after he was lifted for Tony Sipp, Shuck drove home Garcia with an RBI triple and Tim Anderson followed with an RBI double to complete the White Sox scoring for the afternoon. Every member of the starting lineup recorded a base hit on Saturday except Avila, who walked twice.

As is life with the White Sox, the end did not come without drama. Sale’s afternoon ended after the first two hitters of the eighth inning reached — a single by Springer and two-base error by Frazier off the bat of Gonzalez, but Nate Jones came in and limited the damage, allowing a sacrifice fly to Altuve before retiring Correa and Gomez. Sale’s final line was 7 IP, 4 ER, BB, 9 K.

David Robertson earned the save but not before making things interesting by allowing a two-out home run to A.J. Reed.

The White Sox have played exactly half of their 2016 schedule now and stand a game above .500. They’ll go for the series victory at 1:10 p.m. Sunday when Jose Quintana takes on Collin McHugh.

Team record: 41-40

Lead Image Credit: Kim Klement // USA Today Sports Images

1. So Latos, as I mentioned, is not that good. Coming into this game he may have had a 3.40 ERA and 5-0 win-loss record, but any informed reader knows that’s deceiving. He has a 5.07 FIP after this start, and a strikeout-to-walk ratio of 1.29. It’s not good, and it showed tonight. He allowed five earned runs over just five and one-third innings, and he allowed two home runs in the process, to Colby Rasmus and Jason Castro in the fifth and sixth innings, respectively. Other than those two solo shots, he got into trouble… in essentially every inning other than the third. In the first he allowed a single to Jose Altuve, a walk to George Springer, and a run-scoring single to Carlos Correa to bring in one; in the second a Castro single, a Tony Kemp double, and an Altuve ground out led to another run; and in the fourth he allowed a walk to Castro, a single to Kemp, and then a run-scoring single to Altuve.

2. On the scoring end, there wasn’t much. It looked like the Sox could have had Fister on the ropes as early as the first inning, but they only got one run out of the affair: Adam Eaton singled but got thrown out at second, Jimmy Rollins hit a double off the wall, then Jose Abreu drove Rollins home. Todd Frazier walked, but then Melky Cabrera grounded into a double play to end the threat. Cabrera would have his revenge, though, in the sixth: Frazier hit a one-out single, then Cabrera hit a triple to pick up an RBI. Cabrera is now up to 117 wRC+ on the year, so it’s really nice to see him positively regress this year. The Sox would actually get a total of nine hits against Fister over his six and two-thirds innings; he also allowed one walk and picked up five strikeouts. It was classic, “hits were falling, but not in sequence” type of night, and it bought the Astros enough time to get to Ken Giles and the bullpen.

3. Before I get to the rest of this recap, can we pause for a second and appreciate this triple play in the top of the eighth?

pic.twitter.com/gQo3zyKfK1

— Matt Provenzano (@mattprov94) May 19, 2016

This was the team’s second triple play of the year, which is pretty crazy considering how rare that is. It was the first time the White Sox have had multiple triple plays in a season since 2006.

4. So, back to the game. The rest was actually quite bad. Giles came in with essentially no command, walking Eaton and allowing an RBI single to Abreu, but got Frazier to fly out to end the inning. Will Harris worked a clean bottom of the eighth, then Luke Gregerson closed it out.

5. The Sox have now lost six of their last eight, in case you haven’t noticed. That was bound to happen with the roaring start, so I wouldn’t look too closely into it. This was a team that banked a ton of wins early in the year, and was going to slow down a bit eventually. It’s back to Chris Sale tomorrow at 7:10 PM CT against Collin McHugh, so they have a shot to turn it around.

Team record: 24-16

Lead Image Credit: Mike Dinovo // USA Today Sports Images

While Latos is yet to take a loss this season and happened to be the man on the mound to stop two of the four losing streaks the Sox have had before this current one, his last three starts have been somewhat worrisome. His early season magic somehow resulted in 4 wins and only 2 ER allowed over 24.1 IP gave some optimism that his bad 2015 season may have just been a blip. But only striking out 13 hitters over that same stretch of time while walking seven and putting up a wholly unsustainable .167 BABIP meant the other shoe was bound to drop and here we are.

His past three starts have gone 5.0, 5.0, and 5.1 innings each and he gave up almost a run per inning (13) while walking (8) more hitters than he’s struck out (6). He’s looked completely hittable, which is fine enough for a fifth starter. But he’s currently the fourth man in the rotation, standing only in front of a revolving door of has beens, never wills, and other mediocrities. If the White Sox are going to be playing meaningful baseball in September, Latos (or an acquired starter) will have to be a big part in that.

The Astros are sending out there own quasi-reclamation project in Doug Fister. Fister has only managed to pitch an entire season once over the past four years and only threw 103 innings for the Nationals last season due to a combination of injury and ineffectiveness. He’s been a decent enough back of the rotation starter so far this year, only giving up more than 3 runs in one of his seven starts. But his sinker is averaging 2-3 MPH slower while his K/9 is decreasing and his BB/9 and HR/9 are going up. He’s been lucky so far (.250 BABIP), but a right-handed pitcher sitting in the mid-to-upper 80’s is the kind of pitcher the White Sox offense should be able to break out of a funk against (at least in theory).

White Sox Lineup:

1. Adam Eaton- RF
2. Jimmy Rollins- SS
3. Jose Abreu- 1B
4. Todd Frazier- 3B
5. Melky Cabrera- LF
6. Brett Lawrie- 2B
7. Avisail Garcia- DH
8. Dioner Navarro- C
9. Austin Jackson- CF

Astros Lineup:

1.  Jose Altuve- 2B
2. George Springer- RF
3.  Carlos Correa- SS
4. Colby Rasmus- CF
5. Evan Gattis- DH
6. Colin Moran- 3B
7. Marwin Gonzalez- 1B
8. Jason Castro- C
9. Tony Kemp- LF

Lead Photo Credit: Kevin Jairaj – USA Today Sports Images