Orioles 6, White Sox 3: Settling for a split

Making his major league debut, Chris Beck completed the most important objective for a guy starting the back end of a doubleheader by lasting six innings.

The finer points? Hit and miss, but overall, there are other White Sox deserving of more dissatisfaction.

Beck took the loss in his first start, giving up five runs (four earned) over those six innings. It could have been better, in that he gave the lead back to the Orioles each time the White Sox offense gave one to him.

When Adam Eaton led off with a homer -- and an opposite-field one to boot -- Beck gave up two in the bottom of the first. Manny Machado hit his first pitch for a triple into the right-field corner, then scored on Adam Jones' groundout. A Chris Davis RBI double made it a 2-1 game.

Likewise in the third inning, Adam LaRoche hit a two-run homer off Mike Wright for a 3-2 lead, and Beck lost that one immediately. Jones hit a one-out single, Davis walked, and both came around to score on a pair of singles.

But that inning also exhibited a general lack of support for Beck, at least when it came to the respectability plays. Steve Clevenger's single scored a run because Geovany Soto didn't catch Melky Cabrera's throw before applying the tag to Jones, which would've been on time. Making matters worse, the ball deflected away and allowed both runners to advance a base. That 90 feet made a difference, because Davis ended up scoring the unearned run after Conor Gillaspie's diving attempt could only knock down J.J. Hardy's grounder.

Emilio Bonifacio then put one more run on Beck's tab on the way out, as he couldn't get his glove up fast enough on Travis Snider's two-out liner. It glanced off the leather and into right field to make it a 5-3 game after six.

But the most glaring failure happened on the other side of the game. Beck outlasted Wright, who gave way to Oliver Drake in the sixth inning. Drake walked LaRoche on four pitches to start the frame, then did the same to Gordon Beckham on 10 pitches. Conor Gillaspie then came up with a productive batted ball by hitting a drive to right that LaRoche could tag on. He took third, and the throw from right field was cut off.

The only problem was that Beckham drifted out to halfway, thinking the throw was going through. Then he slipped trying to return to first, and he was tagged out easily for the 9-6-3 double play. Geovany Soto extended the inning with a third walk, but J.B. Shuck lined out to second, and Orioles bullpen set down the nine Sox in order to close it out.

Beckham started at short for Alexei Ramirez, who sat for the first time all season, and it wasn't his finest performance. He went 0-for-3 with a walk and two strikeouts, committed the baserrunning gaffe, then contributed an error in the seventh by spiking a throw past Adam LaRoche. One run scored on the play, but Shuck prevented another by making a good throw home that Soto handled.

Bullet points:

*Cabrera (2-for-4) and LaRoche (1-for-3, homer, walk) continued to raise their numbers.

*Beck's final line: 6 IP, 10 H, 5 R, 4 ER, 4 BB, 3 K. Despite allowing 14 baserunners over six innings, he only threw 101 pitches, and he worked pretty quickly considering the amount of stress.

Record: 21-25 | Box score | Play-by-play | Highlights