Orioles 3, White Sox 2: Solo homered to death

Hector Santiago delivered the third straight quality start by a White Sox pitcher tonight. It was about all the team could ask for from a pitcher who had only surpassed four innings one time this season, but Santiago was able to string together six frames and give up only three runs.

All three of those runs came on solo homers, by Manny Machado, Mark Trumbo, and Adam Jones. It’s pretty fortunate that the bases were empty on all three occasions, keeping the Orioles to just three runs. That gave the White Sox plenty of opportunities to try to tie it up or take the lead, and they wasted one after another.

In the fifth inning, with the Sox trailing 2-0, Adam Engel hit a single into left field and forgot to stop at first base, and Trey Mancini threw him out at second by about five steps. After a walk and a single, Jose Abreu shot a double down the left field line, scoring Yoan Moncada, but sending Yolmer Sanchez home was... not the best idea. He too was thrown out by a considerable margin to end the inning.

The sixth inning started with three straight hits—Daniel Palka doubled, Matt Davidson singled, and Leury Garcia hit a rocket into right-center (and pimped it). It one-hopped over the fence, meaning that Davidson wasn’t able to score the tying run. But hey, second and third with nobody out? What could go wrong?

Welington Castillo popped up, Tim Anderson struck out, Engel struck out. Oops.

The final chance came in the bottom of the ninth. Closer Brad Brach walked Engel with one out, and faced a long string of close pickoff attempts before Moncada attacked the first pitch and singled into right, sending Engel to third. That gave the Sox two more chances to get the tying run in. Sanchez botched a squeeze attempt, the O’s intentionally walked Abreu, and Trayce Thompson (a defensive replacement for Palka) struck out to end the game.

It was frustrating to watch the Sox fail time after time to score a run when the Orioles just had to blast a few dingers. Ultimately, this was a night of hard-hit balls on both sides. It’s amazing that this game ended in a 3-2 score when a staggering 29 balls were hit 90 mph or harder. The Orioles hit 11 balls at least 100 mph (including all three homers) to the Sox’s nine.

Other Stuff

• Andrew Cashner pitched five innings and allowed 11 baserunners (8 H + 3 BB), and somehow only gave up the two runs on 96 pitches.
• After Adam Jones’s home run, Rick Renteria intentionally walked Machado with the bases empty. Seriously.
• Anderson was 0-for-3 with a pair of strikeouts, but he also drew his 17th walk, setting a new career high 44 games into the season.