Fulmer Still Searching, White Sox Explode for 14-0 Win Over Tigers
The Tigers entered Saturday night with a keen understanding of how difficult it would be to steal a victory from the White Sox at Guaranteed Rate Field. Their latest defeat--a disheartening 14-0 loss marked the eighth loss in nine tries against the White Sox in 2020.
The game also followed an unsightly trend of the Tigers ending up on the wrong side of a blowout loss and consequently watching the AL playoff race slip further out of their grasp.
52-11 is the combined score of their last five contests, while 4 ½ is the number of games Detroit (20-25) sits behind the final AL wild card spot.
The narrative changed from Friday to Saturday, but that didn’t make it any less frustrating.
The White Sox won Friday’s series opener 4-3 despite going hitless through five innings thanks to Casey Mize’s memorable performance. Holding a potent lineup to a relatively dry three-hit night and still losing the ballgame is tantalizing in its own right.
After five innings on Saturday night, the White Sox had already tallied 11 hits and scored eight runs, while the Tigers offense remained dormant.
Every player in the Chicago lineup, including pinch-hitter, Adam Engel, recorded a hit in their 19-hit, 14-run performance. White Sox starter Ronaldo Lopez commanded his pitches very well en-route to recording his seventh quality start in 12 outings against Detroit.
The Tigers were held to five hits in their second shutout loss at Guaranteed Rate Field this season.
Fulmer continues to search
Ron Gardenhire’s hope was for Michael Fulmer to work his way through at least three innings. Chicago’s deep and talented lineup doesn’t allow much wiggle room for a pitcher still in the process of rediscovering his form.
With Tim Anderson sitting on first and one away, Fulmer tossed a 3-2 sinker to Yasmani Grandal that appeared to be in the strike zone but home plate umpire Nic Lentz called ball four to place runners on first and second.
Shortly thereafter, a passed ball charged to Grayson Greiner allowed Anderson and Grandal to advance into scoring position. Three consecutive White Sox hits would follow in the subsequent at-bats: Jose Abreu singled, Eloy Jimenez doubled and Edwin Encarnacion hit a run-scoring single to make it 3-0.
Fulmer negotiated his way out of a two-on, one-out jam in the second by inducing a 3-6-1 double play, but not before conceding two more Chicago runs and hitting 48 pitches throug two innings.
A two-out, two-RBI double from Nomar Mazara in the third inning ended Fulmer’s night prior to Ron Gardenhire’s goal of getting him through three innings.
“That was all of it, trying to let him get three innings. He’s going to do this thing, and we’re going to let him do it that way,’’ said Gardenhire.
“That’s what we’re trying to do, and it’s tough in these situations, and you know we talked about it, but trying to get him through three innings and it didn’t work out.’’
Saturday marks the fourth time in eight starts that Fulmer (0-2, 9.27ERA) hasn’t completed a full three innings this season.
There’s always tomorrow
After watching the White Sox put up three runs in the fourth, four in the fifth and another in the sixth, Ron Gardenhire spent the final three innings thinking about the need for a cleaner, deeper start out of Spencer Turnbull on Sunday.
“That’s what we talked about in the seventh, eighth and ninth inning with my pitching coach(Rick Anderson),’’ said Gardenhire. That we really need Turnbull to step up and have a good performance and give us a chance to win. We’ve already lost the series, but we have a chance to win a game going home into a day off, and that’s going to fall on his shoulders to give us a good outing here.’’
Spencer Turnbull (4-2, 3.32 ERA) will have the last crack at finding a way to stem the tide against the White Sox in the tenth and final meeting between the sides. The 27-year-old will make his ninth start of the season against White Sox’ Jonathan Stiever, who will make his MLB debut.
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