Ouch! You’re breaking my heart

A seventh straight loss for the Chicago White Sox on Monday, this one 11-3 at Cleveland, was no occasion to mince words. The game was painful.

Ross Detwiler got the start, and with both hindsight and foresight 20/20, should not have, as the shaky lefty had thrown as recently as Saturday, and spun an extraordinary six free passes in his 18 batters faced. In a cap-tip to cigar-chompin’ old-school pitching coach Don Cooper, even a stint as an opener was not on the table for Detwiler, as the White Sox pushed him into a third inning, with predictable results. (And yeah, word up to Coop, even if run out as an opener, Detwiler would have spit the bit, surrendering three of his four earned runs in the first inning.)

Thorough mid-game, the White Sox could con themselves into believing they were still in this one, counterpunching Cleveland death blows to draw to 3-1 in the third, 4-2 in the fourth, and 6-3 in the fifth. But the sudoku splintered into smithereens in the seventh, a crooked number extending the Wahoos’ margin to 10-3.

Positives amidst the pain of slipping to 60-77 (91-loss pace), with three more with desperately-hunting Cleveland? There were a few.

• The White Sox walked as many times as they whiffed (eight apiece), a ratio that can’t be more frequent than 10% of games this season — and this humble resarcher of parody rock not sabermetrics would estimate the frequency can’t be higher than 5%. Take a bow, Yolmer Sánchez (three walks, one hit, 4-for-4 reaching base today) and Yoán Moncada (two passes, no Ks, let’s forget getting thrown out at home ever happened).
• Four doubles among 10 hits, a much higher number of XBHs than in recent games, though Monday’s were all two-baggers.
• Two more hits for BABIP magician Tim Anderson, swelling his average back to .329 (and OBA to a relatively absurd .351!).
• Three hits for Leury García, two for Eloy Jiménez.
• Only 16,149 came to Progressive Field to witness the debauchery.

Heyo, tomorrow night it’s close-cropped Dylan Cease against rockin’-stroll goldilocks Mike Clevinger. Advantage, most decidedly to Cleveland. But we lace ’em up just the same, 6:10 CT, a WGN double-whammy broadcast.