The Chicago White Sox became the second team in the majors to reach 50 losses this season thanks to a second inning Tuesday against the St. Louis Cardinals that they’d rather forget.
The Cardinals took full advantage of the sloppy inning, scoring five runs on the way to clobbering the Sox 12-2 in front of 16,974 at Rate Field.
“They found some holes there, not a lot of hard contact,” manager Will Venable said. “Obviously giving them extra outs, two innings there, made (starter) Shane (Smith’s) job tougher. Just got to convert those balls into outs somehow.
“Shane has had that a couple of times and has had to work through it. Today we weren’t able to stop the bleeding.”
The Sox lost their sixth straight, falling to 23-50. Only the Colorado Rockies (16-57) have more losses.
Tuesday’s game started well for the Sox when Miguel Vargas doubled and scored on a single by Edgar Quero in the first.
It all fell apart in the second. The first two St. Louis batters reached via a single by Nolan Arenado and a walk by Lars Nootbaar.
Pedro Pagés placed a bunt down the third-base line. He was slow getting out of the box, initially thinking the ball would roll foul.
Vargas charged from third base. He avoided contact with Smith, who also was going after the ball, but threw wildly to first. A run scored on the throwing error.
“He makes that play nine times out of 10 there and just was one that he wasn’t able to convert and we weren’t able to close the door there,” Venable said. “Just makes it tough when you give them extra outs.”
Smith hit the next batter, loading the bases.
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Brendan Donovan then got jammed but hit a dribbler with a 69 mph exit velocity just out of the reach of shortstop Vinny Capra for an RBI single, putting the Cardinals ahead 2-1.
Masyn Winn hit a grounder to first. Lenyn Sosa charged and appeared to have a chance for a force at the plate. He elected to tag out Winn, and Pagés scored to make it 3-1.
“It felt like he had time to come home,” Venable said. “That’s one of those where, whatever happens, you want to make sure you get an out and he chose to get the out at first.”
With runners on second and third, the Sox brought the infield in — as they often have with a runner on third and less than two outs.
Iván Herrera connected on an 0-2 inside pitch for a two-run bloop single to shallow right field, extending the lead to 5-1. The hit had an exit velocity of 56.1 mph.
“That’s just baseball catching up to you sometimes,” Smith said. “Some loud contact in Houston that gets caught and soft contact today that doesn’t. So that’s baseball, that’s life. Move on.”
The Sox never rebounded.
“Flush, just flush everything,” Smith said of the mental reset after the second inning. “If you’re thinking about the last inning when you’re out there, then you’ve got a problem. So definitely a little angry with how the inning went and just took it out there in the (1-2-3) third.”
Smith allowed six runs (five earned) on six hits with two strikeouts and three walks in 4 1/3 innings.
“Take the good pitches I made, take the bad pitches I made and try to make an adjustment this week,” Smith said of his takeaways from the 87-pitch outing.
Capra, who had one hit and an RBI on a sacrifice fly, pitched the ninth and surrendered a two-run home run to Victor Scott II.
It was a rough return home for the Sox, who went 1-5 on the road against the Houston Astros and Texas Rangers with three losses by one run and another by two.
“The way we played in Texas, the games really didn’t go our way but we played some really good baseball,” Smith said. “To come back here and have today definitely takes the wind out of your sails a little bit, but I think anything that we do, we show up every day.
“And tomorrow’s like just do it all again. Play like we played in Texas, play like we played those one-run games that we have. So I think for everybody it’s just kind of a flush and show up again tomorrow.”