Orioles 5, White Sox 4: Offense, Rodón leave bullpen in lurch

Followed-from-work bullet-point recap:

*Carlos Rodón couldn’t give the White Sox what they wanted in the first game of a straight doubleheader, and it would’ve been nice if he could blame a blister. He kept looking at something on his hand, but Rick Renteria didn’t blame it for his fourth-inning collapse.

*Rodón struck out five while pitching around two doubles over three scoreless innings, but collapsed in the fourth. He walked Dwight Smith Jr. to start the inning, then couldn’t put away Hanser Alberto, who saw four straight 0-2 pitches and lined the sixth into right. Smith stole third and scored when James McCann’s throw skipped past Yoan Moncada.

He then couldn’t put away Pedro Severino, who fouled off three straight 1-2 pitches, looked at another before lining an RBI single to center. After an RBI fielder’s choice, Richie Martin fell behind 1-2, then fought ’til he could line the 10th pitch of the at-bat for an RBI double to end Rodon’s day with two outs in the third.

*Rodón’s short start put a lot of stress on the bullpen. Evan Marshall fared well in his White Sox debut to get the game through five, but Carson Fulmer threw just 12 of 26 pitches for strikes to take a potential multi-inning appearance off the board, and in came the heavily used guys. Jace Fry gave up a game-tying double to Smith, and Kelvin Herrera gave up a go-ahead sac fly in the eighth. And that’s how a 4-0 lead eroded.

*The White Sox could score when they got help from Baltimore’s defense. Jose Abreu knocked home Leury García in the first after García reached on an error to start the inning. That plot repeated in the second third when Abreu singled him home, and kept going when Yonder Alonso’s grounder to first resulted in three separate miscues (doinked off the first baseman, who then couldn’t catch the throw from Jonathan Villar after Villar initially couldn’t pick up the carom cleanly) that allowed another run to score.

*Both runners moved up on Tim Anderson’s grounder, but Abreu got hung up on a dumb suicide squeeze idea with Nicky Delmonico at the plate, Delmonico made the idea dumber when he singled home Alonso. The Sox didn’t score again, which seemed deserved because, again, the suicide squeeze when David Hess was on the ropes was a really dumb idea. Three of the four White Sox runs were unearned.

*But hey, at least Jose Ruiz threw a scoreless ninth, working around his own error.

*Marshall was called up before the game to take the roster spot of Thyago Vieira. So far, so good.

Record: 12-15 | Box score | Highlights

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karkovice squad

Rodon’s hand problem confirmed as a blister. So Ricky probably a bit full of it.

SkeeterSkeeterman

Was ricky asked about and did he explain the thought process behind the dumb suicide squeeze? That decision continues to irritate me.