A capacity crowd of 38,113 that came to Rate Field for the Pope Hat giveaway ended up having an evening that tested their faith.
What looked like a relatively straightforward victory turned into an extra-inning defeat on a dime, as Bryan Hudson and Grant Taylor combined to blow a 4-1 lead in the eighth after seven impressive innings from Sean Burke, while six Cincinnati pitchers combined to hold the White Sox scoreless after the fourth inning. When Sean Newcomb allowed the Manfred Man to score on a pair of productive flyouts in the top of the 10th, the offense couldn't move Edgar Quero from second base, saddling Newcomb with the unearned loss.
No signs of such a collapse were imminent. Will Venable had his choice of relievers to record the last six outs, but Bryan Hudson gave up a pair of unlucky singles -- the broken-bat infield variety from Matt McLain, a bloop single over the head of Sam Antonacci in shallow right center -- and then a blow by Elly De La Cruz in the form of a solid RBI single through the right side that made it a 4-2 game.
"That's baseball," said Will Venable. "Infield single there, then a bloop, and then De La Cruz gets one on the back side there and just weren't able to stop the bleeding after that."
Grant Taylor entered with runners on first and second and still nobody out, but couldn't stanch the bleeding. Both runners tagged on Sal Stewart's fly to right field, which put both of them in scoring position. JJ Bleday back-filled first base with a walk to load the bases for Tyler Stephenson, who foiled the potential for a double play by poking an elevated curveball to right field to tie the game at 4. The White Sox were fortunate that Munetaka Murakami cut Braden Montgomery's home throw and redirected it at second to get Bleday, because Taylor was able to get out of the inning with the tie preserved.
But the Sox couldn't find the elusive fifth run. Andrew Benintendi and Quero bookended the final two innings of regulation with warning-track flyouts, and while Murakami doubled with one out in the former inning, a pair of flyouts allowed him to travel no further.
Burke was deprived a winning decision, which was a shame when only Eugenio Suárez could solve him. In the fifth, Suárez hit a solo shot on Burke fastball above the zone, although it was Burke's second-slowest four-seamer of the night. Suárez also scalded a one-hop double off the wall with one out in the seventh, but other than a two-out single by Sal Stewart in the sixth, the Reds couldn't touch him.
"It’s a one-run game," Burke said. "That mistake to Suárez will eat at me a little bit. I shook off Q there and went with the fastball and [he put] a pretty good swing on it. That one’s going to eat at me."
He rode a season-high 20 swinging strikes to eight K's against zero walks, and finished seven innings on 94 pitches. There was nothing particularly inventive about his approach -- fastballs and sliders to righties, fastballs and curveballs to lefties, and the ability to grab first-pitch strikes with everything he therw. With Burke having the handedness advantage for two-thirds of the batters he faced, the slider did a lot of the heavy lifting, getting whiffs on nine of the 15 he threw.
The White Sox offense supported him early. In fact, Brenton Doyle homered as soon as possible, taking Nick Lodolo's first pitch over the wall just left of center for an instant 1-0 lead. Quero made it 2-0 by lofting a 1-1 changeup out to left, and Miguel Vargas added a third solo shot to lead off the fourth. Grichuk followed with a double and advanced to third on Braden Montgomery's groundout, and while Colson Montgomery struck out to jeopardize the run, Sam Antonacci floated a single just out of the reach of a diving Dane Myers to salvage it.
"In this league you have to be ready to go 0-0," Venable said of a night where the Sox drew zero walks, but struck out 11 times. "You have to be ready to go up there ready to attack. Obviously the early attack for us really didn't pay dividends after Lodolo came out of the game and just weren't able to get any guys on and push any across."
Once Lodolo left the game, the productive swings dried up. Luis Mey threw two perfect innings, starting an impressive night from the Reds bullpen, which retired 18 of the 19 batters they faced, with Murakami's eighth-inning double the lone exception. Antonacci put up the biggest individual fight, starting the 10th by locking horns with Emilio Pagán for a 14-pitch battle, but struck out on a well-located four-seamer on the hands. Luisangel Acuña and Tristan Peters both popped out to end the game.
"They pitched really good, the bullpen," Quero said. "Their bullpen was really tough today. It’s part of the game. Tomorrow we are going to try to win the game and next day we are going to try to win the series."
Bullet points:
*The White Sox felt the effects of the short bench a couple of times while Chase Meidroth sat with a sore wrist. Grichuk and Acuña both had to hit for themselves in the eighth and 10th inning against a righty with a runner on second, when Peters might've been used for the former, and Meidroth would've been an improvement over the latter.
*Hudson has an 8.31 ERA in the second half, as he's now given up 12 hits over 8⅔ innings.
*The Montgomerii combined to go 0-for-8 with five strikeouts, with Colson wearing the non-pope hat trick.
*The White Sox are now 1-5 when their first batter homers this season.
