Were the White Sox at or near where they expected to be in the standings, then this game would've registered as an unremarkable loss.
The Astros ambushed Lucas Giolito early, but he settled down to pitch reasonably well the rest of the way. The Sox were kept in check by a rookie starter, but a rookie starter who qualified as a top-50 prospect and pitched in the Futures Game last year, and they did punish Dusty Baker for leaving him in one batter too long. The White Sox bullpen pitched three scoreless, walkless innings, and the game ended on a brilliant diving catch by Chas McCormick that took extra bases away from Tim Anderson. All these are characteristic of a day where one good team beats another good team.
The problem is that the White Sox fell to 14-28 as a result, so you wouldn't call them a "good team," and the road to redemption becomes steeper when any theoretically winnable game ends up in the loss column
Giolito pitched six innings for the seventh consecutive start, but he suffered a little too much damage in the first. He gave up three runs at the time he recorded his first out, and that first out took the form of a sacrifice fly he made possible by not properly backing up Tim Anderson's throw home, which allowed Yordan Alvarez to take an extra 90 feet on his two-run double.
Giolito recovered to end the inning with a Yainer Diaz double play, and he allowed just three hits over his remaining five innings. The problem was that he basically used up all of his forgiveness in the first inning, so when one of those hits was Diaz's first career homer, it produced the run the White Sox offense couldn't get back.
Not for a lack of trying. Luis Robert Jr. answered Diaz's solo shot with one of his own in the fourth inning, giving him a homer in every game of the series. Two innings later, Robert doubled with one out, then scored two batters later when Jake Burger's baby-soft fly ball (91.2 mph!) drifted into the White Sox bullpen for a two-run homer in his first game back.
Alas, they got to Brown a little too late, because even if Dusty Baker looked like he might've regretted leaving in Brown to face Burger, Brown still pitched deep enough into the game to set up his high-leverage arms in order. Seth Martinez got the last out of the sixth with the bases freshly emptied, and then Hector Neris, Bryan Abreu and Ryan Pressly held the Sox hitless over the last three innings.
Gregory Santos, Aaron Bummer and Reynaldo López got through the last three innings without incident themselves, but they didn't have the ability to take a run off the board.
Bullet points:
*Stu Scheurwater had a busy day behind home plate, signaling five pitch-clock violations. The White Sox had four of them, including a batter timer violation by Anderson.
*Gavin Sheets made a fine diving catch in right field to rob Mauricio Dubon of at least a single, and potentially an RBI triple depending on how far the ball would've gotten past him.
*The White Sox only had three at-bats with runners in scoring position, with Burger's homer accounting for the lone hit.
*José Abreu went 1-for-4 with a single off Giolito in the first inning, but otherwise his series looked emblematic of his rough start as a whole.
*Andrew Vaughn went 0-for-4, and 0-for-12 for the series, so both teams had production problems at first base.
*Adam Haseley pinch-hit for Seby Zavala in the ninth inning with the Sox facing Pressly down one, which means that Yasmani Grandal was healthy enough to catch if needed, but not healthy enough to run if needed.
*The White Sox missed out on their chance to take the season series from Houston, instead going 3-4.
