Mariners 3, White Sox 2: Zero walks, 16 strikeouts

The thing about the White Sox is that they can pack a lot of unpleasantness into a 3-2 game.

For instance, you’d probably think from the score that they pitched pretty well, but that wasn’t the case. Michael Kopech battled through the first two innings, and then he battled through the first four innings, and then he wore down from all that battling in the fifth. He walked six batters on top of six hits over 4⅓ innings, but somehow allowed just one run, which actually scored before the biggest mess.

Tanner Banks then appeared for long relief, and while he stranded Kopech’s loaded bases in the fifth, the two innings that followed punished Pedro Grifol for the trade-off of sparing the overworked relievers. When Andrew Benintendi(!) — Andrew Benintendi(!!!) — homered in the top of the sixth to put the Sox ahead, Banks couldn’t hold it, giving up a one-out double and a two-out single that knotted the game at 2.

When the Sox did nothing in the top of the seventh, Tesocar Hernández hit a no-doubter for the game-winning run to start the bottom of that inning.

Banks pitched 2⅔ innings, and he effectively covered 3⅔ innings with his loss because the Sox didn’t have to take the mound in the ninth … but he also took the loss because the White Sox offense was mystified by Seattle’s right-handed sliders.

Bryan Woo shaved three and a half runs off his 10.80 career ERA by striking out nine over 5entered this game with a 10.80 ERA, and he departed with nine strikeouts over 5⅔ innings. Matt Brash, Andres Muñoz and Paul Sewald recorded seven of their 10 outs with a K. Combined, the White Sox struck out 16 times without a walk. Combined, the White Sox whiffed 35 times.

Solo homers accounted for all their runs, and Woo surrended both of them. Gavin Sheets pulled out his TaylorMade Stealth and smashed an 18-degree drive over the right-center wall for the game’s first run in the top of the fifth. An inning later, Benintendi got on top of a high fastball for a homer that felt as improbable as Scott Podsednik’s Game 2 walk-off.

And that was it. The Sox tallied three other hits, but did nothing behind them, which is why I don’t besmirch the solo homer. It’s preferable to anything else with nobody on board.

Bullet points:

*Luis Robert Jr. struck out all four times at the plate, and Andrew Vaughn wore the silver sombrero. Jake Burger also struck out three times, but mixed in another kind of out.

*Burger and Tim Anderson combined for two errors on one play with one out in the eighth. First, Jake Burger failed to catch Jose Caballero’s line drive. After it trickled into shallow left field, Tim Anderson retrieved it and fired a no-hope throw into the camera well to give Caballero a second base. Jesse Scholtens stranded him.

*Seby Zavala made a helluva play to end the sixth inning earlier than it could’ve. Ty France singled to left to score J.P. Crawford to tie the game at 2, and Benintendi seemed to compound matters by airmailing the cutoff man. But Zavala recognized the hopelessness of getting the out at the plate and cut off the throw himself, surprising France, who read the angle and started advancing to second. Even better, Zavala ran right at France, and kept running until he tagged France himself for the third out.

*Benintendi was credited with an outfield assist on that play, which is only going to encourage him. You rarely see a 9-2 putout completed between first and second base.

*For those wondering:

Record: 30-41 | Box score | Statcast

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