White Sox head west with that familiar losing feeling
Swept at home and hitting the road for six games out West with a 6-13 record in tow is no way to start a season, but that’s where the White Sox found themselves Thursday after a stinging 5-3 loss to the Rays before an announced crowd of 10,128 at Rate Field.
As they embark on road series against the Athletics and Diamondbacks, both teams with winning records, the Sox sport the worst record in the majors after losing eight of their last nine games and six in a row at home. They are on an early trajectory to 111 losses, which would mark their fourth consecutive season of 100 losses or more. The Phillies lost 100 or more for five consecutive seasons, from 1938-42. Three other teams have lost 100 or more in four straight years, the 1909-12 Boston Braves, 1962-65 Mets and 1961-64 Washington Senators.
Perhaps it’s too soon to dig up such history, but the general consensus around these parts entering the season was that a corner would be turned with the current rebuild. But a .316 win percentage is doing nothing to support that suggestion. The Sox have pitched well enough, but ranking third to last in the majors in runs scored and going 5-for-39 (.128) with runners in scoring position the last seven games isn’t cutting it. There are days like Thursday when hard-hit balls don’t find safe places to land — manager Will Venable noted it has been like that for the last four games — but so it goes in baseball, which doesn’t cut slack for light-hitting teams.
“Still just missing that big hit and putting some crooked numbers up there,” said Venable, who watched Miguel Vargas and Everson Pereira homer and catcher Edgar Quero double for only his first RBI. “Have to keep going.”
“Yeah, we are frustrated,” Quero said.
Munetaka Murakami, the Japanese home-run threat signed in the offseason, was frustrated with an 0-for-4 with his 24th, 25th and 26th strikeouts after flying out to deep center in the first. Murakami (.167) has five homers but only 10 hits, the others singles to go with a hefty 17 walks.
The book on Murakami was his vulnerability to high heat, but he has been whiffing on off-speed stuff as well.
“There are more base hits in there,” Sox director of hitting Ryan Fuller promised. “You saw it in Japan. His ability with two strikes to have a little bit of a trade-off. It might not be the home-run swing but dial it back a little bit, see the ball a little bit deeper. Use the whole field.”
The Sox’ other notable free-agent signee, closer Seranthony Dominguez, failed to protect the lead handed to him with Pereira’s homer in the eighth, giving up a tying homer to Junior Caminero, then putting the fourth and fifth runs on base via a walk and hit batsman before exiting to a smattering of boos.
“I don’t know, they just found a way to keep touching the ball every time, every single pitch,” Dominguez said. “They just did a great job keeping alive.
“Unfortunately I didn’t do my job today, but I have to do it next time.”
Lucas Sims replaced Dominguez with the score tied, walking in the Rays fourth and fifth runs.
It has been that kind of stretch for the Sox, who are not avoiding the avoidable mistakes that only exacerbate things. On Wednesday, Murakami wandered off base thinking it was strike three and got picked off. On Thursday, Derek Hill singled Tanner Murray to third base with two outs in the second but got caught by the cutoff man in an inning-ending rundown.
“Just not the right decision on that ball,” Venable said. “Once he was in the rundown, especially when [first baseman Ryan] Vilade got the ball at that point, Tanner has to go ahead and try to take home.”
“It’s tough,” Pereira said. “You don’t want to have any losses, especially not like this one. But it’s part of the game, too, you just have to keep going.”
We shall see where it goes.