The second impression of Pedro Grifol was a little rockier than the first.
The White Sox led this one 3-0, but the combination of Kendall Graveman On Consecutive Days and Jake Diekman At All, along with a couple of uncertain routes (or positioning) by Andrew Benintendi, led to a seventh-inning collapse.
Graveman took over in the seventh inning of a game the Astros cut to 3-2 on a two-out, two-run Kyle Tucker homer to end Lance Lynn's night the inning before. His second outing initially followed the path of his Opening Night inning -- a leadoff single erased by a double play. But he senselessly walked ninth-inning Martín Maldonado to turn over the lineup, and Jeremy Pena extended the inning by hooking a not-bad curveball into left field, a couple steps in front of Benintendi, who was positioned toward the left-center gap. Then he walked Alex Bregman to load the bases for Yordan Alvarez.
Having watched Aaron Bummer bounce a pitch in a similar situation on Opening Night, Grifol went to his other lefty, and Diekman didn't have any answers himself. He gave up a loud double that fell between Benintendi and the wall to left center, which cleared the bases and put the Astros ahead 5-3.
Diekman then walked Tucker to start the eighth. Tucker stole second on José Ruiz's watch, then came around on a David Hensley single that skipped by a diving Elvis Andrus to ice the game.
It takes more than three runs to qualify as a comfortable lead in Houston, but the White Sox controlled the game in the first half. Lance Lynn survived some early control problems to have one of his better starts against a team that often clubs him around, and Eloy Jiménez made up for his Opening Night struggles with a pair of clutch RBI doubles. Yoán Moncada followed the second of Jiménez's two-bagger with an automatic double to deep right center to foil Cristian Javier.
Tucker turned the game in Houston's favor in consecutive innings. Just when it looked like Lynn would complete six scoreless innings, José Abreu kept the inning open with a two-out single, and Tucker turned it into two runs by golfing one of those classic down-and-in pitches to a lefty over the right-center wall.
The Sox were about two feet away from getting those two runs back in the top of the seventh. Luis Robert Jr., who had a miserable three-strikeout night against Javier's high fastballs, singled against Seth Martinez with one out. Benintendi followed with a high fly to right that would've landed in the Kraft Kave at Guaranteed Rate Field. In Houston, however, it was destined to bounce off the top of the wall ... except Tucker beat the ball to the spot, and got his glove in between for an impressive leaping heist.
Jiménez then ended the inning with a tapper in front of the plate, and the Astros fully grabbed the wheel.
Bullet points:
*Jimmy Lambert ended the sixth inning, and would've been a good candidate to pitch the seventh instead of Graveman. Joe Kelly wouldn't have been bad, either.
*Ruiz was called for a balk when he got his feet tangled on a pickoff move.
*Speaking of the running game, the White Sox were successful on their first steal attempts of the year. The Astros went 2-for-3, with Yasmani Grandal gunning down Pena on a call that replay needed to reverse.
*The Astros found their walking sticks, drawing seven against eight strikeouts. The White Sox only walked once -- Tim Anderson again -- while whiffing 11 times.
