Mariners 8, White Sox 6: Jonathan Cannon digs too deep a hole

The White Sox offense made this game more interesting than it had any right being after Jonathan Cannon's start made it as dreadful as possible, but while they came closer to erasing another gigantic deficit than their late outburst did the night before, the result was another lumpy loss on the West Coast.

Cannon got knocked out in the second inning after yielding seven baserunners over the course of five outs, and in such a sequence that all of them managed to score on his watch. He departed with the Sox trailing 7-1, which made it all the more remarkable that the White Sox brought the go-ahead run to the plate in the ninth inning.

For the second straight night, the White Sox just needed to see the Seattle bullpen to put a scare into the home crowd. They threatened George Kirby early and scratched across single runs in the second and third, but never delivered the kill shot that prevented him from throwing a quality start.

Once the relievers entered, however, scoring runs became a far less complicated process. In the seventh, Mike Tauchman's deep fly to center cleared the center field wall by a row for a two-run shot that made it a 7-4 game, and Lenyn Sosa rifled the first pitch he saw over the right field wall for back-to-back homers on back-to-back pitches.

Alas, Steven Wilson couldn't keep the Mariners off the board in the bottom of the seventh, as a one-out walk to Julio Rodríguez came around to score on a Josh Naylor single and an Eugenio Suárez sac fly to extend the lead to three. The run didn't prove decisive, but it limited the White Sox's options for getting the game to extras in the ninth, a concept that became more possible when Michael A. Taylor greeted All-Star closer Andrés Muñoz with an opposite-field homer to open the ninth.

Muñoz then walked Brooks Baldwin and Mike Tauchman to put the tying runs on base, but with a two-run margin, it removed the productive out from the playbook. The White Sox had to swing through it, and Muñoz recovered to retire the next three he faced -- Sosa on a strikeout, Andrew Benintendi on a flyout, and Luis Robert Jr. on a groundout -- to end the game.

Cannon remained on the hook for the loss, and it was one he deserved after throwing the shortest and least effective start by a non-opening White Sox this year.

He nearly made it out of the first unscored upon, but a one-out walk made it possible for Josh Naylor to come to the plate, and he unloaded on a high, plate-splitting cutter for a 450-foot blast to the second deck in right field. The longest homer of his career gave the Mariners a 2-0 lead, and it'd only get worse from there.

Another one-out walk preceded greater two-out troubles in the second. While Luis Robert Jr. was able to flag down Cole Young's drive with a diving catch after a suboptimal route for a second out with two on, Cannon couldn't close the door. He walked Randy Arozarena to load the bases for Cal Raleigh, and while Cannon got ahead 1-2, his attempt at a high fastball ended up in the middle of the zone, and Raleigh hooked it into right field for a two-run single.

Likewise, he got ahead 0-2 on Rodríguez with a pair of sweepers off the plate, but a third one dangled over outer half of it, and Rodríguez swatted a no-doubter to left-center for a three-run shot that gave the Mariners all the runs they needed. After Naylor reached on catcher interference from Kyle Teel, Cannon's night was done.

Perhaps the big cushion also provided a false sense of security, because Tyler Alexander came in and provided 4⅓ innings of shutdown relief, allowing just a hit and a walk while striking out five. The combination of his long relief work and only having to cover eight innings in a road loss allowed Will Venable to get by with only using three relievers. If a starter can ever keep a game within reach, he'll have his preferred arms to try closing it out.

Bullet points:

*Cannon has allowed 19 runs over his last 12 innings, during which his ERA has risen from 4.18 to 5.34.

*The Mariners once again ran wild on the White Sox battery, going 4-for-4 with stolen bases, and all of them easy.

*Naylor stole two of the bases, leading to a very specific kind of historic feat.

*Colson Montgomery had a humbling night, going 0-for-4 with three strikeouts and a sky-high popout. The second one of those strikeouts came with the bases loaded and one out in the third inning, but Kirby pitched him perfectly, getting two swings over down-and-in sliders with a fastball that was fouled off in between.

*Robert stole his 30th base of the year, the first time reaching that mark, then took third on a throwing error.

*Curtis Mead went 1-for-4 with two strikeouts in his first start. His first hit mattered, as he went with a fastball well off the plate for a single through the wide-open right side, which scored Robert from third after that baserunning sequence.

Record: 42-72 | Box score | Statcast