Considering he'd only worked 4 ⅔ total innings over his first two games, "the best start of Shane Smith's season" isn't a particularly descriptive label.
"The weirdest start of Shane Smith's career" is far more evocative, especially since it doesn't necessarily render judgment on his effectiveness.
Smith lasted only 3 ⅔ innings thanks to severe inefficiency for reasons good (eight strikeouts) and bad (five walks). He struck out the side around two walks in the first, and it took 12 batters for the Orioles to finally put a ball in play.
"A lot of different stuff going on," said Will Venable.
His stuff had life that it lacked up until now, as he generated 17 swinging strikes after totaling just seven whiffs over his first two starts. But on a 36-degree afternoon, it was a tough day to be curveball-reliant, and a lot of the misses weren't enticing enough.
At a couple points, it looked like he might stabilize to last five. He opened the second with a pair of strikeouts, but then he loaded the bases on a walk, HBP and walk, a needed to win a 12-pitch battle against Gunnar Henderson via strikeout to end it. He should've been able to log a 1-2-3 fourth on 16 pitches, but Tanner Murray misplayed a grounder, and a six-pitch walk to Taylor Ward ended his afternoon.
"Not giving up any runs is a step in the right direction for sure, walking five probably isn’t," Smith said. "Not really putting our team in a good position to win. Just killing our bullpen. As we get into a season and the games start stacking up, we need these guys to be as fresh as possible."
Sean Newcomb was able to overcome an overturned groundout-turned-infield single by getting Pete Alonso to ground out, but Smith still left five more innings for nursing a 2-0 lead.
The bullpen eventually gave way. Newcomb allowed an RBI groundout in the fifth, and then Jordan Hicks and Chris Murphy teamed up to falter in the eighth. Doubles by Blaze Alexander and Ward tied the game at 2, and while Murphy entered for handedness purposes against Henderson, he ended up giving up a two-run homer that gave the Orioles the series, with a chance to sweep on Wednesday.
That said, White Sox pitchers have only allowed six runs over two games, which generally works no matter the sequence. The problem is a White Sox offense that has been limited to three runs over two games, which generally doesn't play.
The Sox were able to tag Trevor Rogers for a pair of runs in the third inning, the kind of reward for contact that eluded them yesterday. Derek Hill flipped an 0-2, two-out changeup into center field, then scored all the way from first when Taylor Ward's diving attempt on Chase Meidroth's liner ended up bouncing off his shoulder on the way up. Meidroth took second on the play, and then scored when Lenyn Sosa dropped another sub-90 mph single to center, putting the Sox ahead 2-0.
Orioles pitching kept them off the board the rest of the way, but despite only mustering three hits the rest of the game, the Sox still had their share of scoring opportunities.
In the fifth, Meidroth kept the inning alive by singling Luisangel Acuña to third, but while Sosa followed with an actual hard-hit line drive, Ward as in positoin to catch it in front of the warning track without issue.
An inning later, Colson Montgomery doubled with one out. Quero struck out, but while the Orioles granted the Sox an extra life when Pete Alonso dropped the throw from shortstop on what should've been a groundout by Tanner Murray, Andrew Benintendi popped out.
In the eighth, Montgomery reached when Grant Wolfram's fastball clipped his jersey, then moved up to second on a wild pitch. Quero hit for himself, with Munetaka Murakami emerging on deck in place of Tanner Murray, but he once again struck out.
""Everybody knows I suck right now, I'm not afraid to say it, but at the same time I'm working every day, trying to work hard, trying to come back," said Edgar Quero, blunt as ever. "I know, everybody knows I can hit. It's part of the game. Right now it's a moment to learn and to practice a little bit more, get stronger mentally and we'll come back."
Murakami ended up hitting in the ninth for Acuña against Ryan Helsley after Dustin Harris led off with a walk in his first plate appearance as a White Sox, but he struck out on a 100-mph fastball on the outside corner, and Derek Hill flied out to end the game.
Bullet points:
*Quero finished 0-for-4 with two strikeouts, and was hesitant to challenge on both sides of the ball on what appeared to be a couple of misses by home plate umpire Mike Estabrook.
*Benintendi went 0-for-3 with a strikeout, going around on a Rogers pitch that hit him.
*The announced attendance was 10,750. That seemed high.
