Important stuff from Tuesday's 7-1 drubbing at the hands of the Royals
/Five innings worth of a crisply pitched game is lot of innings. It's most of the game, even! It's certainly plenty to ask of Scott Carroll. But as Carroll snuck out of the fifth inning, throwing something that vaguely resembled a wipeout slider but obviously couldn't be, it was obvious that the Sox were not preparing the calvary to rescue Carroll at the first spot of trouble--as they have none--and instead hoping to stretch Carroll out for as long as he could go.
In a 1-1 game.
On a night they were missing their best hitter with a back injury.
They lost.
This is not to villainize Robin Ventura, who flat-out lacks the proper help to send and winds up turning to desperate measures, but point out that the Sox danced on the blade of a knife for five innings, then looked ugly when they couldn't manage the trick for all nine. Carroll probably should not have let the first four batters in the sixth reach base, or given up doubles to the corpses of Billy Butler and Raul Ibanez to break the 1-1 tie for good, but such is the life of an eighth starter.
- Adam Dunn provided the only offense off Bruce Chen with his third homer of July. Previously the new element of his game that he was focusing on, this was Dunn's first real left field shot of the season. Just noticing is all. At this point I have excused myself from all 'What's wrong with Dunn?' discussions for good. No longer interested.
- It was a Bruce Chen night, and he got through five innings of one-run ball before turning it over to the Royals actually good bullpen, which is capable of rescuing bad starters at the first sign of trouble. Hawk really doesn't let you forget a decent Bruce Chen start, or Mike Moustakas hitting two home runs, or Billy Butler scoring the go-ahead run, or any bad Royals player doing anything.
- Adrian Nieto went 1-4 with a strikeout and let a run-scoring wild pitch that bordered on a passed ball scoot by him in the sixth. He's also outperforming Tyler Flowers in nearly every imaginable offensive category just by hitting .257/.321/.324 with massive batted ball luck. The overpromoted rookie even has better walk/strikeout rates, and that Nieto playing protect out there all the time and never driving the ball doesn't matter, because Flowers has not tapped into his power at all. Nieto's a dreadful defender who will probably irritate the pitching staff with his learning curve, but he's hardly being outclassed by anyone.
- All four White Sox relievers walked a batter. Eric Surkamp is bad and got lit up for an eighth inning home run by Mike Moustakas with the platoon advantage.
- Carlos Rodon made his pro debut Tuesday night. He struck out one, while allowing a run on two hits in a single inning.
Team Record: 48-53
Next game is Wenesday at 1:10pm CT on WGN vs. Kansas City
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