Reds run roughshod over Chisox southpaws, 11-4

It was not the best day to be a Chicago White Sox lefthander.

Aaron Bummer and Caleb Frare, on paper the two best lefties out of the pen after Jace Fry, were tattooed for four earned apiece in less than two combined innings, cinching an 11-4 clobbering by the Cincinnati Reds at Camelback on Wednesday.

After Reynaldo López made his spring debut in midseason form — midseason, in the sense that he walked the tightrope and pitched through traffic — Bummer came on in the third inning, with the White Sox down, 2-1.

The southpaw suffered from the jump, issuing two walks before whiffing both Matt Kemp and Eugenio Suarez. From there, however, Bummer walked Yasiel Puig and then offered up a bases-clearing double to Derek Dietrich. The sensational Nick Senzel then doubled to left, pushing in Dietrich and sweeping Bummer from the game.

With the game at 6-1, the South Siders would hardly creep closer. Welington Castillo doubled home Yoán Moncada in the third to get the White Sox within four, but in the next inning, some confused umpiring took a run off of the board and a rally off the books for Chicago.

With Yolmer Sánchez on third after a walk and a José Rondón single, Blake Rutherford lined out to left, where Phillip Ervin made a rolling and tumbling catch. Sánchez scored, but was later ruled to be doubled off of third base for leaving the bag before Ervin’s catch. The naked eye sensed, and something even as shaky as spring training telecast replays confirmed, that Yolmer was well within his rights to legally score on the play. No Gatorade for you, third base umpire Quinn Wolcott.

In the fifth, Jon Jay clubbed a homer to right-center, pulling the White Sox within three, but in the top of the sixth Cincy counterpunched with a four-spot off of Frare. Three straight singles, then a double, made the game 7-3, and Juan Minaya then entered and put out the fire with gasoline by surrendering a bases-clearing double to Christian Colon.

The two teams traded a run from there, and a fourth loss in six games was iced for the Chisox.

So, positive signs?

• Yonder Alonso opened up the White Sox scoring in the game, with an oppo solo shot to left in the second.
• López picked Puig off of second, meaningless in the overall scope of the game but surely sweet for Reynaldo’s bragging rights the rest of spring.
• Seven White Sox batters in the game are clubbing an OPS of 1.000 or better.
• Mauricio Cabrera, late of the Atlanta Braves but now a wild-card option in your Chicago pen, threw a strong 1 1/3, yielding just one walk.
• Thyago Vieira may just have something with his whole “God sent me José Contreras” schtick, because the big man has been straight nails so far this spring, clocking in with 1 ¹⁄₃ innings of one-hit ball.
• Rutherford and Rondón executed a nice relay on Puig’s single to right in the first, cutting down Suarez at third.
• And yeah, duh, the whole reason I endeavored to start a plus-bullet list, still no errors! (Thanks, steely!)

It’s back up the road to Peoria tomorrow, for a tilt vs. the Seattle Mariners. Lucas Giolito takes the bump.

More information on today’s game.