BALTIMORE — The White Sox were hanging around, trailing the Baltimore Orioles by three runs going to the bottom of the sixth.
But the Orioles worked a pair of walks to begin the inning against reliever Chad Kuhl. Then came an RBI double, a two-run single and, after a pitching change, a single and two-run triple.
A six-run sixth served as a knockout punch as the Sox suffered their 11th consecutive defeat while getting hammered 13-3 in front of 35,906 on Monday at Camden Yards.
“Walks are always going to hurt you but it wasn’t just the walks today,” interim manager Grady Sizemore said. “I thought we had some good at-bats early but didn’t capitalize on other opportunities, we didn’t take care of the ball. It wasn’t our best game.”
It’s the 108th loss of the season for the Sox, extending their franchise record.
And Chris Flexen extended his winless start streak to 20, another franchise mark.
The Sox last won on Aug. 21, a dramatic 6-2 victory at San Francisco when the team scored four runs with two outs in the ninth inning.
They went 0-10 during the homestand that followed, the first time that has occurred in franchise history. The Sox returned to the road Monday, but couldn’t return to the win column.
At 31-108, the Sox are 77 games under .500 for the first time in franchise history. They need to go 12-11 over their final 23 games to avoid tying the expansion 1962 Mets (40-120) for the most losses in modern-day Major League Baseball history.
The Sox led at one point Monday, as Andrew Benintendi and Gavin Sheets collected RBIs in the first inning to put the team ahead 2-0. Sheets finished with two hits.
Orioles shortstop Gunnar Henderson homered to lead off the bottom of the first.
The Orioles took the lead for good with two runs in the third. Anthony Santander’s RBI single tied the score. Flexen struck out the next two batters, but couldn’t retire Austin Slater — who drove in a run with a double.
Flexen allowed three runs on seven hits with five strikeouts and two walks in 3 1/3 innings.
“Our offense jumps out the gate early, puts up two runs,” Flexen said. “Gave them one back early, pitched out of some jams and then gave it right all away. Overall pretty disappointing.”
The 20-game winless start stretch continues the longest in a single season in MLB history. It also surpassed the previous club record of 19, which he had shared with Dan Wright (May 9, 2003, to May 1, 2004).
The team’s 20 consecutive losses in games Flexen has started surpasses the MLB record he shared with Chris Capuano and the Milwaukee Brewers (May 13, 2007 to June 3, 2010). The first 18 during Capuano’s stretch came in ’07, with one in 2010 after missing time because of Tommy John surgery.
Flexen is 0-10 during his winless starts stretch with 10 no-decisions.
“Every time I take the ball I expect myself to go out and be competitive, have strong outings,” Flexen said. “I don’t think a lot of them have been all that great, a couple of quality starts in there, but overall my performance has been very disappointing on my end.
“Thought the mix the last few outings has been good. Today, my stuff was better than the results, just executing in a couple of situations, just got in some bad traffic. I continue to fight, continue to work.”
The Sox are 2-24 in games he has started this season, with both wins coming against the Tampa Bay Rays. His last victory came on May 8.
Aided by a throwing error from reliever Fraser Ellard, the Orioles scored twice in the fifth to make it 5-2.
They were just getting warmed up. The Orioles pulled away with the six-run sixth featuring the RBI double by Cedric Mullins and two-run single by Slater against Kuhl and a two-run triple by Emmanuel Rivera against reliever Touki Toussaint.
A two-run home run by Mullins in the eighth capped an 18-hit day for the Orioles.
It’s the fourth time the Sox have surrendered at least 13 runs this season and the third time they’ve allowed at least 18 hits.
“There’s definitely worse losses than others. Today was a bad loss. We didn’t play good baseball,” Sizemore said. “There’s a difference in losing and competing and losing games that you give away. Especially against a good team like this, you have to be sharp on both sides of the ball and we weren’t. Against really good teams you pay for it and they add on.”
