Not a whole lot is working, to be honest--Sox drop fourth straight
/After Felipe Paulino escorted himself from the rotation and onto the DL last night with 10-run implosion, the White Sox could have really used a stabilizing effort from trusted and committed starter Jose Quintana, and a return to form from the most exciting offense of the first two weeks of the season.
They got neither. And they lost. And Adam Eaton got hurt.
Instead, in a 6-3 defeat at the hands of the Texas Rangers, the White Sox got the worst start of the season from Quintana, which was relatively mild--five runs in five innings--as far as train wrecks go, and an offense that wasted too many opportunities for their eighth-inning rally to matter.
Quintana couldn't miss a bat from the outset of the night, allowed ringing hits from the first three batters he faced, and relied on baserunning outs to escape the first two innings with only a single run across. When the Rangers threatened in the third with Shin-Soo Choo's double, Quintana threw one of a handful of his good inner-half fastballs of the night to whiff Alex Rios--his only K of the night--but couldn't stretch illusions any farther.
Prince Fielder led off the fourth with a titanic solo blast, and Quintana couldn't the hold the damage to one run when he was unable to put away backup second baseman Josh Wilson with a cutter that split too much of the plate. Wilson clubbed a two-out, two-strike, two-run single and scored himself when Choo hit his second double of the night. At least Q had the time to pitch the fifth. That reduced Jake Petricka's garbage-time workload to three frames.
Five runs should not have been an intimidating hill against Colby Lewis, but the Sox were not able to make their papercuts add up, mostly because Alexei Ramirez's magic potion ran out Saturday. After leading off the second with three-straight singles from large, rhinoceros-shaped men Jose Abreu, Adam Dunn and Dayan Viciedo, the Sox walked away with a single run after Ramirez grounded into an easy double play.
When Colby Lewis ran out of gas in the sixth and Aaron Poreda came in and walked Dayan Viciedo to load the bases for Ramirez, Alexei softly tapped out to the middle infield to end the threat. And when Dayan plated two runs in the eighth with an RBI single that put the Sox in shouting range all over again, Ramirez hit into his second twin killing of the night. Swing early and often is certainly the Chicago Way, but Ramirez's magic stick has mostly abandoned him in Texas.
Game over, series over, streak over.
In contrast, it was actually a productive night for the big boppers. Abreu, Dunn and Viciedo combined for seven hits. If a single one of them had gone for extra bases, the Sox might have had something.
Team Record: 8-10
Next game is at 2:10pm in Texas on CSN Chicago
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