For the third consecutive day, a game at Kauffman Stadium concluded with a 2-0 score.
For the second consecutive day, the White Sox ended up on the wrong end of it.
This time, it was Michael Wacha stonewalling the Sox offense over eight frames, and Lucas Erceg closed it out to run the scoreless streak to 20 innings, spoiling a commendable performance by Erick Fedde and Sean Newcomb in the process.
It could've been worse, in the sense that the White Sox ran the risk of being Madduxed by Wacha. He came out throwing 11 of 11 pitches for strikes in the first inning, and was 25-for-29 through three. The Sox offense didn't make him work much harder than that, as he allowed just two doubles, two singles and a walk over 88 pitches. Had the Royals built him more of a cushion, Matt Quatraro could have let him attempt to go the distance without second thought.
"It's just one of those stretches," said Andrew Benintendi, who doubled in the first. "It's early, you look up at the board and see a bunch of people hitting in the .100s so it's maybe a little bit of panic there for a lot of us. But it's a long season. The sample size is still so small that it takes a bloop here, a bloop there and all of a sudden you get going."
Were the White Sox offense a more credible unit, you might look at the number of awkward/late/regrettable swings and wonder if the late-afternoon visibility had something to do with it. That the White Sox came into the afternoon the worst offense in the league fresh off a 105-pitch shutout the previous night made it difficult to offer the benefit of the doubt. Wacha and Erceg combined for an even 100 pitches thrown this time around. It's enough that Will Venable asked how he'd break out of this kind of slump during his playing days.
"The way I went about it is not how I would have these guys go about it," Venable said. "You have to keep going. You have to trust your process and trust what you are doing. These guys work extremely hard and put themselves in the right position to succeed. Just gotta do it on the field."
Just like Davis Martin before him, Fedde took the unfortunate loss. As it turned out, his afternoon was damned by the first pitch he threw, a middle-middle fastball to Maikel García that found the left field seats for a solo shot.
The innings grew in ease and efficiency as the day progressed. He had to work around a play not made by Chase Meidroth and an HBP after an 0-2 count to strand the bases loaded in the second, and he ran a pitch count of 64 through three innings, but he was able to coast to his personal finish line with a nine-pitch fifth and the game still 1-0.
"Stuff's probably the worst it's been all year, but the sweeper was great today, and I just kind of relied on it," Fedde said. "The best way to go about it as a pitcher is to not think about [the offense]. Every time I step on the field, I'm trying to give up zero runs. I can't throw negative runs, so just keep going about it and be competitive, and any time we fall behind in the game, my goal is to keep it right there. So I think it's just keep that mentality and just battle and the guys will get there."
Sean Newcomb followed with two perfect innings, but Jordan Hicks allowed a leadoff double to García, who came around to score on a pair of productive flyouts to account for both runs all day.
Bullet points:
*After playing Friday night's game in 1 hour and 54 minutes, this one took only 1 hour and 56 minutes, so the two shortest White Sox games of the pitch clock era have occurred on consecutive days. It's the third time since 1987 that any team has played back-to-back nine-inning games in under two hours.
*If it seemed longer, it's because the start of the game was delayed 25 minutes by rain.
*The White Sox went 0-for-3 with runners in scoring position, and the Royals were 0-for-2. The teams are now 0-for-28 combined through the first three games of this series.
*Tanner Murray notched his first big-league hit with a single up the middle in the fifth inning. Like Duncan Davitt the night before, at least somebody has a reason to smile.
"I was kind of tapping on everybody’s leg walking through the dugout, to give me some luck, and it paid off," said Murray, who kept the baseball. "Deep in my backpack until I see my mom again, I’ll probably give it to her."
*Davitt is getting optioned back to Triple-A, which will cut short the smiling. Grant Taylor will open on Sunday and Jonathan Cannon is being recalled from Charlotte to pitch behind him in some capacity.
