Without the services of Luis Robert Jr., Miguel Vargas, Austin Slater, Ellis Burks, etc., it was an open question entering Friday night whether the White Sox had enough right-handed thunder on hand to threaten old friend Carlos Rodón.
They did not. Asked, and answered.
"Their pitcher did a really good job when we got runners in scoring position," said Edgar Quero, who doubled and reached base three times. "Rodón was really good today attacking the hitters, throwing pitches in the zone."
But when it comes to recaps of blowout losses to the Yankees, the squeaky wheel gets the grease, and six innings of one-run ball where Michael A. Taylor ducking a tag from Ryan McMahon at third allowed the only run off Rodón to score, just isn't compelling copy.
Davis Martin was effusive in crediting the Yankees lineup for not chasing in his postgame interview Thursday night, and after his grueling six walks in four innings Friday night, Yoendrys Gómez should have enough material to produce pamphlets on the topic.
Gómez opened the game against his old team by immediately issuing three of the nine walks Sox pitching handed out on the evening to the first three hitters of the game. He recovered to find the feel for his new sinker, inducing a double play ball to Colson Montgomery from Ben Rice to escape the first inning with only a single run across. But the phrase is walks will haunt, not walks will immediately bring a corresponding level of severity.
After striking out the side in the second and pitching around a Austin Wells single and Aaron Judge walk in the third, Gómez looked on his way to something resembling a respectable result and a competitive game. So it was then, at this specific moment of unfounded optimism that walks decided to haunt.
The Yankees opened their half of the fourth by using a replay challenge to show Quero's mitt had clipped Giancarlo Stanton's swing for catcher's interference, and Gómez went the rest of the way toward loading the bases with free passes. A particularly uncompetitive five-pitch free pass to No. 9 hitter Austin Wells turned the lineup over to Trent Grisham.
The general rule of thumb with Gómez is that is he has good secondaries and a mediocre heater. He winds up nibbling with his vulnerable fastball, and he can lose command of his spin, resulting in walks and putting himself in poor counts. Speaking of which, Gómez fell behind Grisham 2-0 and grooved him a fastball, and the resulting grand slam really kinda wrapped up any remaining mystery on how things were going to go.
"I was trying to be just too perfect, and I think that led to me missing pitches and missing my spots," Gómez said via interpreter. "Then once I was behind in the count, I had to try to get on and that was when they took advantage of it."
It wasn't enough to simply get waxed by a contending Yankees team, so some golden calves had to go down too. Grant Taylor working the sixth inning of a 5-1 game had the making of a lower-leverage get-right opportunity. At the same time, the middle of the Yankees batting order never seems like a prime get-right opportunity, and Taylor didn't get right. He threw half of his 26 pitches for balls, walked half of the four hitters he faced, didn't retire any, and ended the night charged with three runs.
Will Venable suggested Taylor's next opportunity might similarly be in a lower leverage spot of the game.
"I think that’s fair," Venable said. "Finding spots for him, that was a little bit of the calculus tonight. Where, there really are no soft spots in that order, but toward the bottom there where a lower leverage spot."
On most nights, relieving Taylor (bad ERA, great peripherals) with Mike Vasil (great ERA, bad peripherals) would be inspired toggling between options. But Vasil allowed one of Taylor's inherited runners to score and then allowed a two-run homer to Anthony Volpe in the seventh, so their complementary nature wasn't properly mined.
A leadoff double from Quero, followed by singles from Colson Montgomery and Andrew Benintendi provided a run in the eighth. But it also served to drive home that the Sox out-hit the Yankees 12-7 and still lost by eight runs.
It's bad that Korey Lee pitched for the second time in three days. It's worse that a reasonable question could be "why didn't he pitch two innings this time too?"
Bullet points:
*Alarmingly, nine walks issued for White Sox pitching is not a season-high. They handed out 11 free passes to the Cubs back in May.
*Five Sox hitters had multi-hit nights, but Quero legging out a double in the eighth on a bad hamstring was the only extra-base hit.
*The Sox have been outscored 32-7 over their last three games. It's 37-7 if you count from the eighth inning of Tuesday night.
*Tim Elko went 0-for-4 with a pair of strikeouts in his return to the majors.
