Farquhar looms over White Sox in 10-1 loss

Mark Buehrle. Jose Contreras. Thornton Lee. Ted Lyons.

When Lucas Giolito vomited a game score of four in his two-inning start vs. the Houston Astros in an eventual 10-1 loss on Saturday night, the young righthander sat in good company.

Those pitchers, White Sox stars all, each were battered in games that netted them a game score of four. In fact, Buehrle had two games for the White Sox worse than a four, Contreras one, Lee one, and Lyons four. White Sox legend Billy Pierce and Hall-of-Famer Rich Gossage also recorded starts netting a game score of less than four. Hall-of-Famer Lyons, in fact, has the worst game score in White Sox history, -16.

Now, Giolito’s utterly horrid effort, a battering where he yielded nine earned runs on just five hits, but tossed in seven walks for extra measure, far from assures him a future statue in Sox Park, or a spot in Cooperstown. But hey, Lucas, chin up, and let’s speak no more of what hopefully will be your low point as a member of the White Sox.

Unsurprisingly, after being spotted an 8-0 lead by Giolito and a 10-0 lead overall, Astros starter Dallas Keuchel had little trouble earning his first win of the season, spinning six strong innings and yielding just four hits and two walks against six strikeouts. The sole damage inflicted on Dallas was the highlight of Chicago’s game, a solo shot from Trayce Thompson in his first White Sox start of the season.

There were a couple of other bright spots for the Chicago 9 tonight. After sending home one of Giolito’s baserunners in the third, Chris Volstad added just one earned run to his own ledger over three innings of work. The relief corps rushing to douse Giolito’s Inferno (also numbering Luis Avilán, Gregory Infante and Joakim Soria) threw seven innings and yielded eight hits, one earned run and no walks, while striking out seven.

Also, no one got hurt.

Hang in there, Danny. We are all pulling for you.