We made it to 100! We made it to 100! Sox lose their 100th, 9-4 to Tigers
Oh. Is that not a good thing?
Losing 9 to 4, what a way to blow a season,
Barely getting by, all awful beyond reason
They fail all the time and deserve no fandom credit
It’s enough to drive you crazy if you let it ...
Well, Dolly has a point there, but then, she could hit and field better than most of the White Sox.
100! 100! 100! Did we mention 100?
It can be very good, 100 can. Get 100 on your spelling test, and you get a gold star. Live to 100, and you get a birthday card from the president. Find a $100 bill and you can thank Ole Ben for your nice dinner.
But 100 losses in a baseball season? Not so great. And the White Sox achieved that not so great goal this afternoon, 100 losses with six days to go in August, 100 losses with 31 games left, easily enough to set them up for the MLB record for awfulness.
It looked for a minute or two like this might be the Sox day. Detroit loaded the bases in the first on two walks and a catcher’s interference call, but Jace Jung was kind enough to take a Jonathan Cannon cutter right in the middle of the plate and bounce into an easy double play. Then Andrew Benintendi and Andrew Vaughn hit back-to-back doubles off opener Beau Brieske after a Nicky Lopez walk in the bottom of the inning, and the Sox were up two-zip. Whoopee!
The Tigers got one back in the top of the third and would have had more were it not for a fine Lenyn Sosa play.
Sosa actually had a nice day in the field, a pleasant exception to the work that had earned him a -0.7 dWAR. Had a couple of hits, too.
Then Vaughn got the lead back up to two against Bryan Sammons in dramatic fashion.
That 414’ shot made the lead 3-1, but it was not to last. An Austin Meadows triple in the fourth, aided by Benintendi wandering around a bunch, made it 3-2, and then Cannon had the kind of fifth he’d had against the Giants last time out — three straight hits and a walk before leaving the game with no outs and 93 pitches on his record.
Fraser Ellard came in to get out of the inning but let two runs in. That made it 5-3; that was all she wrote. The Sox scored their final run on a Corey Julks sac fly in the seventh, but that was after an Andy Ibanez two-run homer had already put Detroit up 7-3.
For some reason, Grady Sizemore thought it would be a good idea to bring in Touki Toussaint, who had thrown 35 pitches in giving up four runs in less than an inning last night, and he gave up two more runs, to reach the final score. Maybe they’re planning to DFA Touki, and Sizemore hoped he’d have a nice inning as a going-away present.
Of course, 9-4 is closer than the score Saturday, so there is that. And while the Sox made four errors, other than the interference they were all the kind that just advance runners, not put them on, so all nine Tiger runs were earned.
However, do not go away thinking the Sox are the only team that does terrible stuff like stupid baserunning. Witness the play that kept the Detroit fifth from leading to even more runs.
Just your routine 1-2-5 double play, with third baseman Miguel Vargas getting both putouts.
The White Sox continue their quest to lose more games than the ‘62 Mets in an odd Monday night series finale tomorrow. Davis Martin is scheduled to start against Undecided.