White Sox lose: game, face, and maybe two players
The Tigers started Michael Fulmer, holder of a 13.50 ERA from his lone appearance after coming back from Tommy John surgery. After three shutout innings, he left with an ERA of 6.35.
They followed with Daniel Norris, holder of a 10.80 ERA from his one appearance after starting the season late due to testing positive for COVID-19 in June. After two shutout innings, he left with an ERA of 4.91.
The Sox did manage one run against the less-than-vaunted Tigers bullpen — the team ERA coming in was second-worst in the league. That came on a Danny Mendick triple in the seventh — Mendick had three of Chicago's eight hits — and an Adam Engel groundout.
That cut the Tigers lead to 2-1, the one-run margin lasting about two minutes, as Jeimer Candelario led off the bottom half with a matching triple and was scored by by a Victor Reyes single, to end Keuchel's night with a bare-minimum quality start of six innings and three earned.
It was right after that things got a little strange. Codi Heuer gave up a single to .063 hitter Harold Castro and Engel, playing center as Luis Robert was rested, made a perfect peg to nail Reyes at third.
Way to go, Adam, right? Yeah, except on the next play Jacoby Jones hit a sinking liner that Engel dived for and missed, leading to the second inside-the-park homer against the Sox in less than a week.
It was the first time the White Sox had allowed two inside-the-park homers in a season since 2008 — yes, not in the space of a week, but a 162-game season.
Anyhow, it got to 5-1 and the Sox mounted no threat thereafter. They did have a few hard hit balls earlier — in particular, Eloy Jiménez scorched a 109.4 EV ground out, which was balanced by a cheap single later. Since he'd been zip-for-22, any hit was just fine.
Remember how the Sox offense was supposed to be really potent? The only time in the last week they've scored more than three runs was when they got to put a guy on second to help them get to a fourth one.
The potent bat was that of Tiger Niko Goodrum, who came in hitting .191 and went 4-for-4 with a homer.
Here's the postgame media session from Danny Mendick, one of the few bright spots in tonight's game, courtesy of the White Sox:
And the words of the mentor, Ricky Renteria, postgame, courtesy of the White Sox:
The loss drops the Sox to 8-9, and things may get worse. The one category where the Sox led in the game was players leaving due to injury. C.J. Cron of the Tigers appeared the worst hurt, being helped off after apparently twisting his knee on a hard grounder, but the Sox had both Leury García and José Abreu depart.
Leury hurt his thumb making a headfirst slide into first. José pulled up with an apparent hip injury after being tagged en route to first when the throw came up the line, which threw off his stride as he hit the bag. Both will be evaluated Tuesday, although manager Ricky Renteria felt Abreu, at least, would be fine.
On the positive side, especially where the middle infield is concerned, it's probable Tim Anderson will be back for Tuesday night's game.
The game will be at 6:10 p.m. Chicago time, with Gio González trying to get on track, against Tyler Alexander. Alexander struck out nine Reds in a row in relief his last time out, so it would be pleasantly ironic if it turns out he's the one Tigers pitcher the Sox clobber.