After successfully guiding a one-run lead over the finish line on Tuesday, the White Sox bullpen couldn't convert on two chances to do it again.
Shane Smith endured the rockiest possible start to throw five innings that, as the saying goes, kept his team in the ballgame. His team paid notice to it, turning a 3-0 deficit into a 4-3 lead when Tim Elko homered in the third, and Lenyn Sosa and Joshua Palacios went back-to-back in the fourth.
"It’s too bad a three-run homer in the first has to wake you up to get outs and throw strikes," Smith said. "For me to give up three in the first and then somewhat do my job toward the end, and those guys to rally behind me felt great."
But when the lead reached the bullpen, it didn't survive the inning. And then it happened again two innings later.
First, Brandon Eisert took over for Smith in the sixth and immediately gave up a solo shot to Cal Raleigh. It wasn't a terrible pitch (a changeup off the corner, maybe just not low enough), nor was it that impressively hit (352 feet, barely into the White Sox bullpen), but even though Statcast said it would've been a homer at just five of 30 MLB ballparks, it tied the game at 4 just the same.
The White Sox offense untied it in the bottom of the seventh, when Tim Elko reached with one out on a grounder up the middle that Dylan Moore failed to glove cleanly. It was originally ruled a single before being changed to an error, which meant it counted as an unearned run two batters later. After a Josh Rojas walk pushed Elko to second, an inside-out swing by Chase Meidroth muscled a grounder inside first base for an RBI single that allowed the Sox to retake the lead.
"The bats have to get going a little bit more," Meidroth said. "There was a lot of good at-bats, a lot of hard-hit balls right at people. It’s kind of coming together day-to-day and we have to keep going."
The Sox still had runners on the corners with one out, but Miguel Vargas and Matt Thaiss both struck out, and their inability to convert the insurance run proved costly when Mike Vasil started the eighth.
Rowdy Tellez opened the inning with a single that got through Michael A. Taylor for an error that put a runner into scoring position. The good news is the gifted 90 feet didn't matter. The bad news is that the 90 feet didn't matter because Vasil hung a changeup to Leody Taveras, who hit the game's sixth homer to give the Mariners the lead that actually stuck. And so an opportunity to take a series from a division leader went by the boards.
There were some individual triumphs to take into the off day. Smith came out spraying his fastball and his changeup, resulting in a pair of game-opening walks before Julio Rodríguez pummeled a middle-middle sinker over the right-center wall for an immediate 3-0 Seattle lead.
Smith settled down to allow just one other hit over the remaining four innings, and even though early inefficiency (and a Meidroth error in the second inning) had him at 70 pitches through three, he managed to complete five innings with just 17 more. He rediscovered the ears on his changeup, accounting for eight of his 10 whiffs, and on 14 swings.
"He was pulling off a touch and Ethan [Katz] went back out there and kind of settled him down, and got him back in and settled him for the rest of the game," said Thaiss. "A lot of our starters have had that. They have all gotten us to that five, six-inning mark and shows how good this rotation can be."
The White Sox offense hit three homers for the third time all season, and the first since March 31. Elko put the Sox on the board in the third when a fourth consecutive Logan Evans sweeper dangled over the center of the zone, and Elko did what he had to do to it.
An inning later, Sosa came to the plate with one on and one out. With one strike, he anticipated a righty-righty changeup from Evans, and even though it was off the plate inside, he got the barrel to it and hoisted it high over the left-field wall to tie the game at 3.
Palacios then homered on a third different Evans pitch, turning and burning on an 0-1 fastball and sending it into the middle of the fancy right field seats for his second homer of the season.
Bullet points:
*Luis Robert Jr. had another game to forget, striking out his first three times up and finishing 0-for-4.
*Vargas made a fine diving stop and throw across the diamond in the ninth to retire Rodríguez in the ninth inning.
*Eisert and Vasil were both tagged with blown saves, giving the White Sox nine against four saves this season.
