At 2-13, the White Sox have never been worse through 15 games in franchise history, and they looked every bit the part this afternoon.
The box score shows that the White Sox committed three errors, but that only hints at how overmatched the Sox were this weekend. It's easier just to take an inventory of the ways they failed.
No. 1: White Sox pitchers had more walks (eight) than strikeouts (7).
Michael Soroka issued six of them over 4⅔ innings, and he wasn't feeling it from the start. He managed to escape with the bases loaded the first inning, he eventually faced a reckoning in the third. Christian Encarnacion-Strand followed Will Benson's leadoff single by golfing a sinker out to left for a 2-0 lead, and that was the less painful part of the inning.
Soroka then walked the next two batters, and while Nicky Lopez saved a run with a diving stop on Elly De La Cruz's grounder, it only delayed it, because two runs ended up scoring on Jeimer Candelario's infield single. The hot shot ended up handcuffing Gavin Sheets, and while Lopez collected it, his throw home was too late to catch Jake Fraley, who never broke stride.
No. 2: The Reds ran wild.
Cincinnati stole six bases on Soroka, and even their mistakes didn't result in outs. Korey Lee appeared to gun down Candelario at second in the fourth, but Lopez dropped the ball while applying the tag. In the sixth, Tanner Banks picked off Will Benson, but Sheets hesitated on the exchange before throwing to second, and Lopez missed the fast swipe tag.
No. 3: All three White Sox outfielders should've been charged with errors.
Fraley dropped a routine fly down the right-field line to gift the White Sox a second run in the fourth inning, which temporarily cut Cincinnati's lead in half. In the seventh inning, Robbie Grossman duplicated the error to deprive Banks of a second out.
Two batters later, Tyler Stephenson hit a deep drive to right center, and while Dominic Fletcher had to travel a long way to get to the spot, he found the ball on the warning track. He just dropped the ball on the warning track. It was the toughest of the White Sox's misplays, but it still probably should've been E8 all the same.
In the eighth, Andrew Benintendi fumbled a single, and Nick Martini turned it into a double. That extra 90 feet resulted in an E7.
No. 4: The White Sox offense ... actually wasn't terrible.
Had the White Sox not been shut out five times in the previous 14 games, today's output would be treated as an ordinary losing effort. They reached on eight hits and five walks, and went 2-for-8 with a sac fly with runners in scoring position. The biggest issue in this one was a lack of extra-base hits, as Paul DeJong's leadoff double in the seventh was the only one that counted. That said, Andrew Benintendi's bases-loaded drive off the wall in left-center would've been a double under most circumstances, but all runners held because Benson almost flagged it down.
The offense wasn't the problem for once, but when you factor in the defense they played, the position players weren't a solution, either.
Bullet points:
*Tim Hill was ejected after his ninth-inning appearance, probably for disagreeing with a two-strike call by home plate umpire Derek Thomas.
*The Reds had nine of the 10 hardest-hit balls of the afternoon.
*The White Sox were outscored 27-5 this series, including two 11-run shellings.
