The Chicago White Sox hadn’t hit back-to-back house runs all season. They did it twice Thursday in opposition to the Los Angeles Dodgers — and it nonetheless wasn’t sufficient.
The Sox noticed a four-run lead slip away on one swing, a grand slam by Chris Taylor within the sixth. The recreation went to extras, the place Freddie Freeman ended it with an RBI single to offer the Dodgers a 5-4 victory in 11 innings.
“A four-run lead, it’s a tough one to lose,” Sox supervisor Pedro Grifol mentioned.
The Sox constructed the lead with the 4 solo homers.
Luis Robert Jr. and Eloy Jiménez homered consecutively within the first. Jake Burger and Andrew Vaughn did the identical within the fourth.
“When you are up 4-0, you feel like you have a good chance,” Burger mentioned. “That’s baseball. After (Vaughn) hit his home run, we didn’t get any more runs. It’s on us.”
The Sox solely had another hit after the fourth inning, a double by Elvis Andrus within the seventh. He was later erased on a vital base-running mistake.
Some of the Sox’s early success got here with the batters behind in counts in opposition to Dodgers starter Michael Grove.
Robert was down 0-2 when he launched his homer to middle, his seventeenth of the season. Jiménez was down 1-2 when he homered to right-center.
Burger was behind within the depend 1-2 when he hit a laser out of the park to middle for his sixteenth homer. Vaughn jumped on a 3-0 pitch for a house run to left.
It’s the primary time the Sox have had two separate back-to-back homers in a recreation since July 11, 2010, when the combos of Alex Rios-Carlos Quentin and Andruw Jones-Dayán Viciedo did it in opposition to the Kansas City Royals.
Sox starter Dylan Cease dominated the Dodgers early, hanging out six within the first three innings. He allowed two hits by 5, each singles to Mookie Betts. But a excessive pitch depend was going to chop brief his outing.
He allowed two singles within the sixth and exited with one out within the inning, having thrown 102 pitches within the recreation.
“I had a couple walks that were regrettable but for the most part I commanded the zone pretty well, got ahead in the count and got a few strikeouts,” Cease mentioned. “I left pitches up (in the sixth) so I was disappointed I didn’t finish it off.”
Reliever Reynaldo López retired the primary batter he confronted after which allowed a single to load the bases.
Taylor related on a 1-1 fastball for the game-tying grand slam.
“(López) left a fastball out over the plate and Taylor hit it,” Grifol mentioned.
Cease didn’t issue within the choice regardless of permitting two runs on 4 hits with 10 strikeouts and three walks in 5 1/2 innings.
The Sox had an opportunity to regain the lead within the seventh when Andrus doubled and moved to 3rd on a one-out groundout. Robert walked, giving the Sox runners on the corners with Jiménez batting.
Robert tried to steal second and catcher Will Smith faked a throw. Andrus took the bait and ventured too far off the bag. Smith threw to 3rd and Andrus was tagged out in a rundown.
“We were stealing the bag because I knew they weren’t going to throw,” Grifol mentioned. “He simply bought caught in an arm pretend. It wasn’t a deliberate double steal or something like that. He simply bought caught in an arm pretend.
“Our philosophy on that was steal the bag, get another guy in scoring position because they’re not going to throw the ball to second base.”
Sox reliever Kendall Graveman bought out of a jam with two on and one out within the ninth, hanging out Smith and Jason Heyward to ship the sport to further innings.
The finest scoring probability for the Sox got here with runners on the corners and one out within the tenth. But Robert and Jiménez struck out. Aaron Bummer struck out Taylor with runners on second and third and two outs to increase the sport to the eleventh.
Both groups struck out 16 occasions.
The Sox got here up empty once more within the eleventh, and the Dodgers drew two walks to load the bases in opposition to Garrett Crochet — whose velocity was down however advised Grifol he was OK to proceed — earlier than Freeman ended it with an extended fly to middle that landed close to the warning monitor for a success.
The Sox have been 0-for-8 with runners in scoring place. The Dodgers went 3-for-11.
The Sox had an opportunity to make up some floor within the American League Central standings, however as an alternative dropped two of three within the sequence and stay 5 1/2 video games out of first.
“It’s disappointing, but we fought really hard,” Cease mentioned. “Sometimes that’s just the way baseball goes, you know?”
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Source: www.bostonherald.com