Although Tristan Gray spent a couple days on the White Sox roster in July, he didn't appear in a White Sox game until tonight.
Unfortunately, he wasn't playing for the White Sox, so when he hit a no-doubt homer in the top of the seventh in a game tied at 4, the Rays ended up taking their second lead of the game, and this one stuck.
After missing with a first-pitch fastball high, Tyler Alexander brought a second-pitch fastball into the inner half of the zone to Gray, who spun and launched it well into the fancy seats behind the Tampa Bay bullpen. He seemed to savor the moment, flipping his bat to the ground before starting his trot, then flexing at the White Sox dugout after rounding third. Apparently he took the White Sox's pre-deadline trade to Tampa Bay for cash considerations personally.
Gray's lefty-lefty victory stiff-armed a stirring comeback attempt from the White Sox, who came through with a pair of their own lefty hits without the platoon advantage to erase the deficit.
The Sox trailed 4-1 after Yoendrys Gómez watched his worst pitches get demolished during five otherwise effective innings, but they were eventually able to claw back into the game against old friend Adrian Houser, who allowed a Kyle Teel solo shot just beyond the center field wall two batters into the game. Lenyn Sosa then reached on a Junior Caminero error before Houser retired the next 13 batters.
"I don’t think it was a good outing; I allowed four runs and that’s not good," Gómez said via interpreter.
"I just know [Houser]'s got an elite sinker and that’s what I got," Teel said. "I feel like we’re never out. Obviously not the result we wanted but we did fight back. Just got to do things a little bit better and you’re right there."
It probably should've been 14 in a row to complete five innings, but Brooks Baldwin's high fly to the right field corner went in and out of Josh Lowe's glove as he leaped on the warning track. Baldwin legged it out into a triple, and Chase Meidroth slashed an inside-out grounder through the right side to make it a 4-2 game.
Houser then started the sixth, but he didn't finish it. He retired Teel with a popout, then got ahead 1-2 on a high fastball to Lenyn Sosa that got Will Venable ejected by Vic Carapazza. When play resumed, Houser left a sinker middle-middle, and Sosa replicated Meidroth's path with a single through the right side.
"Sosa with the big hit to start that inning," Venable said. "There was some frustration building on our side, probably on their side too. Just one of those nights. It happens. It's baseball. It's a tough job back there. Just some pitches didn't go our way."
Colson Montgomery then came to the plate, and Mason Montgomery came in from the bullpen to face him. The announcers didn't get much time to marvel at the symmetry, because Colson smoked Mason's first-pitch fastball into the right-center gap, which got past Lowe's sharp angle. Sosa scored, Colson got a double out of it, and after Edgar Quero struck out from the right side, Andrew Benintendi followed his Montgomery's lead by jumping on a first-pitch fastball and lining it to center for a game-tying single.
The Sox weren't able to get a runner into scoring position over the last three innings. Curtis Mead briefly sent a charge through the crowd in the ninth inning when he met Pete Fairbanks' high fastball and sent it high in the air to left ... but a little too high. The exit velocity was what he needed (101.5 mph), but the 43-degree launch angle was too vertical, and the wind knocked it down in front of the warning track for the second out. That denied a great "double revenge game" storyline, and while Gray thickened the plot by getting eaten up by a Baldwin grounder to extend the game with a two-out error, Meidroth lined out to end the game.
Bullet points:
*Houser's line against his former team: 5.1 IP, 4 H, 3 R, 3 ER, 0 BB, 9 K, 1 HR.
*The White Sox did not control the strike zone, striking out 13 times without drawing a walk. That's one of the reasons why Venable got ejected.
"More of a one-off," Venable said of the offense. "We've done a really good job putting the ball in play. Gotta give Adrian some credit too. We've obviously seen him here and what he's been able to do. He was great. I think he did his thing and found some spots in the zone that he could attack and made it really tough on us."
*That said, White Sox pitchers struck out 11 Rays against just one walk, so the zone favored pitchers.
*Except for the one time Carapazza flinched on a two-strike Fraser Ellard sinker that caught the bottom of the zone. He didn't ring up Josh Lowe, though, which set the White Sox dugout on edge. That's probably why they overreacted to Carapazza (correctly) ruling that a two-strike foul tip hit the dirt before Teel smothered it in the subsequent plate appearance by Jake Mangum.
*Alexander dropped to 5-14 on the season. That's a lot of decisions for a guy who has started only five games.
