It might not have been the most imposing offensive display, but the White Sox still had the Tigers where they wanted them -- leading by two runs with Bryan Hudson, Grant Taylor and Serathony Domínguez all rested and ready after six innings of a rejuvenated Davis Martin.
"You look at what that sixth inning looked like; it wasn't, obviously, the crispest of the day," Martin said. "My ego wants to go back out, but knowing that we have Huddy, Grant and Ser; you tell me we have those three guys for the next three innings, I think we win the game every time."
Hudson held up his end of the bargain with a scoreless seventh, but Taylor and Domínguez both bled away the lead in their respective innings, and Dillon Dingler was responsible for both runs. He hammered a 2-0 Taylor fastball for a solo shot in the eighth, and then pulled an ineffective 1-2 Domínguez sweeper through the left side for a two-out single in the ninth that pushed the game into extras.
"I make a mistake on that pitch to Dingler, too much plate," Domínguez said. "It feels bad because we didn’t want to get [swept]. I know we have been struggling a little bit. But we are going to get out from that, and things are going to turn around. We are going to keep doing what we’ve been doing."
The White Sox offense kept Detroit honest by scoring their Manfred Man with a pair of productive flyouts, but Brandon Eisert and Jordan Hicks couldn't reverse the bullpen's course, as they failed to retire any of the four batters they faced before Matt Vierling's flare landed outside the reach of a diving Braden Montgomery to cap off a miserable end to a miserable series at Comerica Park.
The White Sox were one out away from avoiding the sweep when Domínguez gave up a grounder to the left side. Luisangel Acuña gloved it on the backhand side, but the long throw across the diamond was too late to get Jahmai Jones, and the lineup flipped over. Domínguez fell behind Kevin McGonigle and gave up a single through the right side that put runners on the corners, and although Domínguez got ahead of Dingler 1-2, a putaway sweeper stayed up on the outer third, and Dingler smashed it through the left side to tie the game at 3.
"I think I did what I could do," Acuña said of the Jones grounder via interpreter. "I catch the ball and tried to get rid of the ball as quickly as I could."
Kerry Carpenter nearly ended it one batter later, but Jacob Gonzalez made an outstanding diving stop to send the game to the 10th, where Gonzalez factored into both halves of the inning.
He started the 10th on second base, tagged on Edgar Quero's flyout to left center, then scored on Tristan Peters' fly to right for a 4-3 lead. In the bottom of the inning with the game tied at 4 after a pair of solid singles, he made a leaping stop on Colt Keith's chopper, but fired home when the runner on third didn't break. Instead of one out and runners on second and third, the Tigers had the bases loaded and still nobody out, and Vierling's flare off new reliever Hicks ended it. Gonzalez's processing error probably didn't cost the White Sox the game, but it added an extra tinge of regret to an ugly weekend in Detroit.
"I jumped, my eyes were up," Gonzalez said. "I jumped for the ball and if I didn’t come up with it and throw it right away--if I just looked and he was running, he would have been safe. So, I just let it go and I made it. Obviously it sucked we didn’t get an out. In the grand scheme of things, if I got him out at first, we walk him and it’s still bases loaded and one out. It’s obviously way better."
The Sox were close to salvaging the series with a comeback win, which would've counted as encouraging based on who was responsible.
The last time Keider Montero faced the White Sox, he needed just 65 pitches to complete six innings, and AJ Hinch pulled him before the White Sox could figure him out. The Sox were even more hapless this time around, with a Braden Montgomery infield single the only thing preventing a perfect game bid through five innings and 50 pitches, but perhaps that lulled Montero into a false sense of security in the sixth, when he went from leading 1-0 to trailing 2-1 over the course of five pitches.
Montero made two mistakes, and he paid for both. First, he left an 0-2 curveball thigh-high to Peters, who pulled a single through the right side for the White Sox's second hit of the game. Then after Acuña nearly impaled himself on a bunt attempt, Montero hung a curve at the top of the zone, and Acuña launched it out to left for his first homer as a White Sox, 76 games into the season.
"I’m not there yet, but I think I’m getting closer to [how I felt in winter ball]," Acuña said via interpreter. "That’s the goal. Just to feel like I felt before."
The bottom of the order came through once more an inning later. Braden Montgomery singled with one out, and then advanced to third on Quero's single two batters later. Peters came to the plate and lofted a fly ball that sliced out of Trei Cruz's reach in left. Unfortunately, it bounced on the warning track and over the fence in left, so Quero had to stop at third. The White Sox really could have used that run.
Martin could have used it, too, as the blown save denied him his 10th win of the season. He righted his June with six innings of one-run ball, allowing one run while scattering five hits and three walks. He only struck out four, but two inning-ending double plays helped stop potential rallies before they snowballed on him.
"Part of continuing at that point is talking to the player, seeing where they're at," Venable said of pulling Martin after six innings. "After that conversation, all parties agreed that it was time to turn the page and get the ball to Hudson."
Bullet points:
*Taylor has given up homers in consecutive games, even though they were a week apart. His line in June: 8 IP, 6 H, 4 R, 3 ER, 2 HR, 1 BB, 9 K.
"Really good spot for Ser there with the righties," Venable said of pulling Taylor after the eighth. "Regardless of the workload leading up today, the 17-20 pitches, wherever Grant was at, good time to turn the page."
*The Tigers are now 11-6 in June and 5½ games back of the White Sox. They've traded home sweeps over their first two series.
*The first four spots in the White Sox lineup -- Sam Antonacci, Andrew Benintendi (with Randal Grichuk pinch-hitting), Colson Montgomery and Chase Meidroth -- went 0-for-16 with six strikeouts.
