Sunday served as a reasonably good abstract of the primary half for the Chicago White Sox.
Starter Lucas Giolito allowed two hits in seven innings. The opponent, on this case the St. Louis Cardinals, made three errors.
Still, the Sox didn’t win.
The Cardinals tied the sport within the ninth on a grounder that went off the glove of reliever Kendall Graveman. They went forward within the tenth on an RBI double by Paul DeJong and held on to beat the Sox 4-3 in entrance of 29,769 at Guaranteed Rate Field.
“This one hurt to finish up the first half,” supervisor Pedro Grifol mentioned.
Safe to say, the Sox haven’t performed as much as expectations.
They hoped to bounce again after going 81-81 final season and contend once more within the American League Central. Instead they go to the All-Star break a season-high 16 video games beneath .500 (38-54) and eight video games out of first place.
“We’ve played a lot of tough ballgames, close ballgames,” Grifol mentioned. “We’ve misplaced a ton of them. There’s nothing I can say about that. We’ve simply received to maintain going. We’ve received to take this break, come again and proceed to play baseball. Learn from these and proceed to play.
“These hurt. But we’ve got to make adjustments and that’s just a part of it.”
Thirty-three of the final 34 video games have been determined by 4 runs or fewer, with the Sox going 15-19 within the stretch.
“Offensively we’re still creating a lot of opportunities, but we haven’t been able to get our offense going consistently,” mentioned second baseman Elvis Andrus, who had two hits and one RBI.
Giolito, whose identify has been talked about in commerce hypothesis, continued his robust stretch on the mound, permitting two runs on the 2 hits with 5 strikeouts and three walks in seven innings.
He mentioned he has been capable of preserve exterior noise from being an element by specializing in his routine.
“(It’s) having a consistent daily routine where I can look at what writers are saying, I can look at what fans are saying away from the field, but when it comes time to go to work, I go to work and block out everything else,” Giolito mentioned. “When it’s time to pitch, I expect myself to perform at a very high level.”
The two runs in opposition to him got here within the fourth on a homer by Willson Contreras on a 3-2 changeup.
The Sox had been down one run within the seventh when Luis Robert Jr. led off the inning with a double. Jake Burger reached on an infield hit with two outs and Yasmani Grandal walked to load the bases.
Carlos Pérez’s grounder to 3rd ought to have ended the inning, however Nolan Gorman didn’t area it cleanly and a run scored on the error to tie the rating at 2.
One inning later, Zach Remillard singled and scored on a sacrifice fly by Robert to provide the Sox a 3-2 lead.
The Cardinals loaded the bases with one out within the ninth. Alec Burleson chopped one again up the center. The ball deflected off Graveman’s glove to shortstop Tim Anderson, with the one choice getting the runner at second for the second out. Lars Nootbaar scored on the sequence, making it 3-3.
DeJong put the Cardinals forward with the double within the tenth in opposition to reliever Keynan Middleton.
The Sox had runners on first and third with one out within the tenth when Remillard tried a bunt. First baseman Paul Goldschmidt charged, fielded and tagged Remillard whereas retaining Gavin Sheets at third.
“(Remillard) chose to do that,” Grifol mentioned. “But he’s good at it, so I don’t fault him one bit. That’s a part of his sport. That’s one strategy to keep out of a double play. He simply bunted it slightly bit too onerous to Goldschmidt, who’s holding the runner on.
“That wasn’t the game. Actually it’s not a bad idea. We’ve seen him do it over and over again since he’s been here. It just went back to Goldschmidt and he made the play.”
JoJo Romero struck out Anderson to finish the sport.
There will probably be a lot to replicate on throughout the break for the Sox, who’ve misplaced seven of 9.
“A great time for us to reset, regroup and think about what we need to do to overcome in the second half,” Andrus mentioned.
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Source: www.bostonherald.com