The White Sox probably weren't hung over from their cathartic victory over the Cubs on Sunday, but the series opener of their second and final West Coast road trip of the year appeared to be inebriated at times.
Or perhaps there was just an illegal concentration of Sam Antonacci, who made his mark on this game, although not in the way he'd intended.
An ill-advised steal attempt of third helped short-circuit a rally in the first, and then a bizarre sequence in the field in the third led to the decisive Mariners run, as well as Will Venable's first ejection of the season. Meanwhile, the new-look White Sox offense still couldn't produce answers against Bryan Woo, who carried his dominance over the South Siders into another season.
Antonacci was on the wrong end of three miscalculations over the course of the first three innings. He was cut down at third attempting to take an extra base on a Munetaka Murakami walk in the first inning, and we'll get to that in a bit. The third inning was even stranger, starting with Antonacci dropping a one-out line drive in hopes of starting an inning-ending 4-6-3 double play. It was ruled a deliberate drop, though, and only the second out was recorded, with Jhonny Pereda staying on first after a dead ball. Venable came out to get an explanation, but returned to his post in short order.
Unlike the attempted theft of third, this effort seemed like it could be filed under "worth trying." But then Randy Arozarena rifled a double into the left field corner, and while Pereda was cut down easily at home plate, he rounded third knowing he was guaranteed to be safe in one regard or another, as he ran into Antonacci rounding second to draw an interference call. It was the kind of boundary-testing play Antonacci might attempt, as Antonacci had his back turned to Pereda and was moving toward the outfield when Pereda rounded the base generously and shoved Antonacci in the back. After a conference, the umpires awarded Pereda home plate to put the Mariners ahead 2-0, and that's when Venable came out to get his money's worth.
That turned out to be the decisive run, but the game was closer than the final score would indicate, as the Mariners didn't truly put it away until Colt Emerson hit a three-run homer off Trevor Richards in the eighth inning for his first major league hit.
The White Sox were just too sloppy in multiple regards, especially when considering their struggles against Woo carried into a new year.
Woo came into this one with a 1.74 ERA, having limited the White Sox to a .158/.179/.303 line over four games, 20⅔ innings and 78 batters faced. But like so many other games this season, the Sox offense appeared intent on rewriting the scouting report after Antonacci singled and Munetaka Murakami walked to open the game.
Except as Antonacci approached second on the free pass, he started booking it for third, hoping to catch the Seattle battery and rookie third baseman Colt Emerson sleeping. It was a great example of major league openings closing quicker, because even though the replay showed what Antonacci saw, Emerson covered and Woo flipped in time to get Antonacci easily for the game's first out.
As it turned out, the White Sox were not in position to waste chances. Colson Montgomery ended up drawing a second walk of the inning, but Andrew Benintendi struck out to end the first of two legit threats.
A similar rally took shape two innings later, Antonacci and Murakami singled with one out to put runners on the corners for Miguel Vargas. But Vargas chased a first-pitch slider and ended up foul-tipping a middle-middle sinker for strike three. Montgomery then expanded the zone even more, striking out on four pitches, even though only one of them might've been a strike.
That's just how it seems to go against Woo, who struck out five consecutive batters at one point over his six shutout innings. The White Sox only scored after he departed, when Tristan Peters whipped a first-pitch Eduard Bazardo fastball into the right field seats to make it a 3-1 game in the seventh.
At that point, sloppiness accounted for the difference on the scoreboard. Noah Schultz gave up a first-inning solo shot to Julio Rodríguez, but the other two runs were difficult to call "earned." The third-inning run scored courtesy of the interference call, and then multiple White Sox defenders contributed to Seattle's third tally off Schultz in the sixth. Arozarena led off with a deep drive to center that turned around Luisangel Acuña, and while it might've been a difficult play for even a more experienced center fielder, he had another incident where Peters caught a ball behind Acuña in shallow left center, so it wasn't the first time a route lacked crispness.
Compounding problems, Drew Romo let an outside fastball clip off his mitt to allow Arozarena to take third. The last thing Schultz needed was a drawn-in infield against Josh Naylor, and sure enough, Naylor smashed an RBI single through the right side.
The lousy defense continued. Romo let another fastball get to the backstop as Naylor stole second, and then after Schultz departed the game for Brandon Eisert, Montgomery booted a hard-hit grounder right at him. Eisert managed to pitch around the error and a subsequent double steal to close out the sixth with no further damage, and Jordan Hicks pitched a scoreless seventh.
During this point, the White Sox offense had a chance to get Schultz off the hook. Their best opportunity came in the seventh, as after Peters homered, Romo kept the inning alive with a single, and a pinch-hitting Chase Meidroth walked. Dan Wilson called for lefty José A. Ferrer to face Antonacci, which set up Walker McKinven's best chance to flip the scoreboard by pulling Antonacci for Randal Grichuk. But Grichuk flied out to end the inning, and Ferrer worked around a Murakami infield single for a scoreless eighth as well.
That preserved the two-run margin, which became a five-run gap when Richards hung a 2-2 changeup with two outs and two on to Emerson, who got enough of it to drop it beyond the fence in the right field corner to push the game out of reach. The best thing you can say is that no high-leverage arms were harmed in the filming of this episode.
Bullet points:
*Schultz avoided walking a batter over 5⅓ innings, and deserved a better line than the one he wore (5.1 IP, 5 H, 3 R, 3 ER, 0 BB, 6 K, 1 HR). He did plunk two guys -- Pereda to start the third, and then J.P. Crawford on the first pitch with two outs and nobody on in the fifth.
*Updating Woo's career line against the White Sox: 2-0, 1.35 ERA, 26⅔ IP, 15 H, 4 BB, 32 K.
*Peters made a sensational running catch on the left field warning track to take away a sure double from Refsnyder leading off the fourth inning.
*Vargas went 0-for-4 with the costly strikeout, bringing his nine-game hitting streak to an end.
