This White Sox team does not want you to feel. If it did, it wouldn't have put you through the sixth inning.
In the top half, the Sox finally made Yu Darvish pay for transgressions. He failed to find first base on the back end of an attempted 3-6-1 double play, giving an extra out for Dewayne Wise. Wise then finally made Darvish pay for throwing too many of those lollipop curves. Wise sent a 2-2 hanger out about twice as fast as it came in (60 mph), putting it in the right-field seats to tie the game at 4.
Then Robin Ventura started the sixth with Matt Lindstrom, only to pull him after a one-out walk. The overmanaging put this game on a course for hell. Donnie Veal fell behind 2-0 to Mitch Moreland, then gave up an RBI double to the left-center gap. Alejandro De Aza took a too-aggressive line to cut it off, and the indirect line to the wall ended up allowing Geovany Soto to score from first despite Hector Gimenez's best attempt at blocking the plate.
Moreland moved to third on the relay, and Nate Jones came in to try to strand him. Jones got halfway there by getting Leonys Martin to ground out to drawn-in second baseman Tyler Greene. The Rangers then proceeded to score five more runs before Jones retired a batter. How?
- Ian Kinsler RBI single
- Elvis Andrus single
- Lance Berkman walk
- Wild pitch, run scored
- Wild pitch, run scored
- Adrian Beltre two-run homer
That was one of many examples of why the Sox can't have nice things.
They jumped on Darvish for a 2-0 lead early. Greene "tripled" (Nelson Cruz mishandled a deep slicing drive), and Alex Rios cashed him in with a firm single. Then he stole second and came around on a Paul Konerko blooper.
Conor Gillaspie drove a double into the right-field corner, but Konerko could only make it to third ... and they ended up stranding two runners. That became a pattern, as the Sox stranded two in the second and fourth innings, too.
While Darvish kept the Sox off the board, the Rangers eventually got to Jose Quintana. Quintana hurt his own cause in the fourth by falling behind 3-0 to a pair of talented hitters. Adrian Beltre grounded out to third, but Nelson Cruz didn't miss his 3-1 fastball, cutting the Sox's lead in half. One pitch later, the game was tied, as Jeff Baker cranked a get-me-over slider 430something feet to center field.
But Quintana's teammates undermined him in the fifth. Moreland led off with a single, but Quintana got Craig Gentry to hit a firm grounder right to Alexei Ramirez. Ramirez flipped to Greene, who had plenty of time to make a good throw. Instead, he airmailed it into the Rangers dugout, giving the Rangers an extra out and a runner in scoring position.
Kinsler doubled home Gentry, and advanced to third when De Aza had all sorts of Ibanez-ian problems collecting the ball.
With the infield drawn in, Andrus grounded a single through the shortstop side of second to give the Rangers a 4-2 lead.
Adam Dunn got one of those six runs back with a solo homer in the top of the seventh, and the Sox tacked on another in the eighth thanks to another defensive mistake by a pitcher. Michael Kirkman watched Moreland handle a Ramirez smash, and Ramirez beat Kirkman to the bag. Two batters later, Wise doubled Ramirez to third, and the Wild Pitch Offense brought him home to bring the Sox within a slam, but Casper Wells struck out in his White Sox debut, and that was the ballgame.
Bullet points:
- Wise matched a career high in hits by going 4-for-4, and his homer was the first allowed by Darvish in 38⅓ innings. Wise wasn't supposed to start tonight, as Jordan Danks was a late scratch with a sore knee.
- Ramirez made a sensational diving stab to start an inning-ending 6-4-3 double play on Soto in the second. Gillaspie handled a few hot smashes that went his way on the hard infield.
- Jones' final line: 0.2 IP, 3 H, 4 R, 4 ER, 1 BB, 1 K, 1 HR, 2 WP
- Deunte Heath saved face with two scoreless innings in mop-up duty.
- The Sox scored more than five runs for just the second time over the last 16 games.
Record: 10-15 | Box score | Play-by-play | Highlights