After rallying to erase a 4-0 lead with one big wave in the third, Chase Meidroth had a golden opportunity to put the White Sox in front for the first time all night when he stood at the plate with a bases loaded and worked a 3-0 count against Seth Lugo.
Lugo got back into the count with a sinker up and in for strike one. He then threw a sinker even more up and even more in, and had Meidroth not moved, it might have hit him.
But Meidroth moved. In fact, he swung for some reason, and popped out to leave the bases loaded with the game tied at 4 entering the bottom of the third.
And somehow, the score stayed that way until the bottom of the seventh, when Hagen Smith gave up a two-out RBI double to Maikel Garcia for the fateful fifth run. He had the option of pitching around Garcia and going lefty-lefty against Vinnie Pasquantino with runners on first and second, but there were a number of reasons against it:
- Smith has reverse splits the season, for what it's worth (not much yet, except to say he's not weaker against righties).
- A lefty, Carter Jensen, led off the inning with a smoked single as evidence.
- Pasquantino foiled a lefty-lefty matchup against Bryan Hudson to wreck the White Sox's opener plans.
- Smith is probably the kind of reliever who should be attacking unless it makes no sense to do so.
While Garcia's single saddled Smith with the loss, there were a couple of bigger issues than that pitch. Smith was the White Sox's fourth pitcher of the night thanks to Hudson's ugly first inning and an inefficient Erick Fedde (who labored after taking a hot shot off his calf), although the return of an effective Sean Newcomb was a welcome one.
But the most daunting problem of all was that the White Sox offense dried up after Meidroth's popup. They had a golden opportunity to avenge that swing the following inning when they loaded the bases on two singles and a walk, but Miguel Vargas grounded into a double play, and they totaled just two hits over the final five innings.
(Those hits: A Meidroth single that he unsuccessfully attempted to stretch into a double leading off the sixth, and a Braden Montgomery single with two outs in the ninth.)
That's how a dynamic night fizzled out, and how a chance to reclaim first place in the AL Central went by the boards. Instead, the best thing you can say is that Hudson's outing didn't define this game.
One reason why fans don't like the opener is it's easy to overlook when it succeeds, but it's impossible to ignore when it fails. Here, Hudson retired just one of the five batters he faced, allowing three singles over the first four batters for a 2-0 lead, followed by the aforementioned Pasquantino double that made it a 3-0 game. That's how Fedde entered, and while he struck out Salvador Perez, Classy Michael Massey hit a grounder to the left side that forced Colson Montgomery to range right and throw across his body.
Montgomery ended up getting charged with the error, but the mistake was Munetaka Murakami's, as the ball glanced off his mitt while he tried to hold the bag. Either he should've been able to catch it for the final out, or he should've come off the bag to prevent the error that allowed Pasquantino to score from second for an unearned run.
That run ended up mattering, although the White Sox were able to direct attention to later in the game with their outburst in the third.
Meidroth led off with a bunt single, and while Colson Montgomery burned the team's second challenge on strike three, Braden Montgomery singled to right to put runners on the corners, and Sam Antonacci let a pitch whisper against his knee to load the bases.
Kyle Teel then capitalized, shooting a single to left that scored Meidroth easily, and Montgomery on a daring send by Justin Jirschele. A 4-2 game then closed to 4-3 when Vargas dropped a single behind Bobby Witt Jr. for a run, and then Teel scored on Murakami's double into the right field corner.
The Sox just couldn't get that fifth run home, as Andrew Benintendi grounded into a contact play at home, and while Tristan Peters took Lugo's second HBP to load the bases, Meidroth couldn't keep the bat on his shoulder, and the Sox went silent afterward.
Bullet points:
*Another reason why it's hard to fault Smith? It was the only run allowed by the White Sox bullpen over 7⅔ innings, or five innings by the real relievers.
*Braden Montgomery went 3-for-4 at the bottom of the order, making up for Colson Montgomery, who struck out three more times to tie the White Sox single-season record of 222, which was held by Adam Dunn.
*Colson Montgomery did make a very creative plan on a Witt grounder in the seventh, stopping it with a diving attempt and pushing the ball to Meidroth on the ground for the force at second.
