Not even close: Guardians 8, White Sox 4

Better worry a whole lot about Lance Lynn.

First, the good news — the game only ran 2:50.

The bad news is what happened during the 2:50.

Only about 10 seconds of it was used up by the White Sox in the top of the first, as they went down on six pitches from Cal Quantrill. Then what seemed like two hours of it was used up in the bottom of the first, as Lance Lynn gave up six singles, two walks, and five runs on 39 pitches. (It was notable the Guardians did something strange and ran hard, as opposed to the instructions given to most of the White Sox so they not wear themselves out or stub a toe or something.)

Game over? Not quite yet. In the third, Leury García got one of his two hits on the night, Tim Anderson singled, and Yoán Moncada came to bat:

The 401-foot shot closed the score to 5-3, and when AJ Pollock singled home José Abreu in the next inning, it looked like the White Sox might pull off another comeback victory.

Alas, the other team is still allowed to bat even when they have the lead.

Lynn settled down after the first, but had thrown 90 pitches through five. Then it was time for the HOFBP to leave him in too long (should have listened to those of us in my living room screaming for relief), taking a single, a hit by pitcher, a double and two runs to convince said HOFBP to get his butt out of the dugout. Matt Foster let the inherited runner get hit home, finishing off the scoring at 8-4.

Terry Francona apparently decided, “if he got into the Hall of Fame mismanaging like that, maybe I can, too,” and left Quantrill in to start the seventh. Pollock doubled and García singled, setting up a possible big comeback. Unfortunately, Francona saw the error of his ways and brought in Trevor Stephan, who got Seby Zavala to pop up and Anderson to hit into a double play.

Any possible drama was over. No White Sox hitter got on base after that against Stephan and Emmanuel Clase. It took the two relievers just 21 pitches to get through three innings, making it a total of 114 given Quantrill’s 93. That’s seems like about how many pitches the Sox staff needs to get through a typical five innings instead of nine.

The loss drops the Sox 1 ¹⁄₂ games behind Cleveland and 5 ¹⁄₂ behind idle Minnesota, and needing to sweep the rest of the Cleveland series to get back to .500. Action continues tomorrow with a split doubleheader, the first game starting at 12:10 p.m. Central.