Orioles 8, White Sox 4: Frightful first inning spoils sweep attempt

Lucas Giolito is no stranger to tough first innings. Most of them are usually his fault.

He can’t really be held accountable for what happened in today’s first frame — and Baltimore scored five runs. It was mostly bad luck and worse defense.

Cedric Mullins started the inning by foiling the outfield alignment with a drive that dropped out of the reach of a diving Nicky Delmonico in the left-center gap. That’s a palpable hit on Giolito’s tab.

Everything crumbled around him afterward. For instance, when Joey Rickard’s bunt spun right back to Welington Castillo, giving him a chance to get the out at second, he took too long trying to freeze Mullins, and his throw got there late. Then Mullins scored when Jonathan Villar pulled back a bunt attempt and slashed a single through the middle. Adam Jones made it 2-0 when he poked a slider off the plate into right field for an RBI single.

Giolito struck out Trey Mancini on high heat for the first out, but he had to record four outs to get the next two. First, Yoan Moncada went home after making a lunging stab while drawn in, and his throw was too late to get Villar. That was the second fielder’s choice of the inning, but Matt Davidson let a weak grounder clank off his wrist to get an actual error on the board.

At this point, Giolito had faced seven batters. Only three of them had reached safely, and yet he only had one out. The second and third outs came on deepish fly balls to the corners, the first of which counted for a sac fly and made it a 5-0 game.

That’s all the runs Baltimore needed, and since I spent the day in Maine, I main(e)ly watched that inning and skipped through the rest.

Bullet points:

*Daniel Palka hit a towering, 40-degree solo shot in the second, then went opposite-field for another dinger in the fifth. It came on the heels of a Yolmer Sanchez two-run homer and narrowed the Orioles’ lead to 6-4. He now owns sole possession of the home run lead with 24.

*However, Palka departed the game early after jamming his knee on an awkward sliding attempt. He dug up a massive divot in right field as the ball smacked off his wrist, so he failed to make the catch and left the game early.

*Home runs and poor defense sums up the day. The Sox could’ve been table to turn the tides with even a slightly better performance in the clutch, but instead went 0-for-8 with runners in scoring position and stranded 11. Fourteen strikeouts didn’t help.

*Jose Rondon created a jam for Giolito in the second by losing a soft popup for a “single” that ended up getting stranded at third base on an inning-ending 4-3 double play. Another double play helped Giolito escape from a bases-loaded jam unscathed in the third.

*Giolito got six despite the awful first inning, only giving up a solo shot to Villar the rest of the way. That makes it a lot like his first half, in that he overcame early adversity, but only recorded one strikeout over six innings. He got only four swinging strikes on 97 pitches, including none on nine changeups and nine curveballs. That’s where the “bad luck” argument comes up a little short.

*Jose Ruiz gave up his first career run with a solo shot to Jones in the seventh, stalling the Sox’ momentum for good.

*Ryan Burr gave up a run in the eighth, and that run was the “double” that Palka allowed on his ill-fated sliding attempt.

*The White Sox wrapped up the week by going 3-3 on the road against the two AL teams worse than they are. That’s about right.

*Jose Abreu was plunked for the second straight game, and he sprinted to first after it.

*Add details I might’ve missed.

Record: 59-90 | Box score

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hitlesswonder

Where in Maine? I’ve spent a decent amount of time in the Boothbay area*
* Maybe next year the games will be so important that small talk won’t be necessary.

Greg Nix

As a kid I used to spend summers at Boothbay Harbor. Great area. 

ParisSox

Palka has the ROOKIE home run lead.