It was another high profile affair for the White Sox (11-8), which ended its winning streak by losing Tuesday’s match against Athletics (8-10), 11-7. Each team played 18 position players and seven pitchers, and despite trading leads for most of the game, the A’s managed to beat the South Siders 16-10, and the Sox fought back, committing three errors.
Shane Smith was on the mound and struggled through his 2 2/3 innings, walking four batters against two strikeouts, and two of the five hits he allowed were home runs. In 7 1/3 innings this spring, Smith’s ERA and WHIP have ballooned to 9.82 and 2.05, respectively. Shane, unfortunately, was also responsible for one of the errors on a groundout in the first, which led to two runs on the next batter as Brent Rooker hit a double to produce two of his three RBIs. Smith would end up striking out a batter in the second inning, however.
Advertisement
The bullpen isn’t faring much better. Garrett Schoenle, Mark McLaughlin and Grant Taylor each had a save, and the Good Guys gave up five more points after Smith went out. McLaughlin allowed one run while Taylor gave up two more and ultimately earned the loss.
Left-hander – and usually starting pitcher – Hagen Smith came on in the bottom of the eighth although he too wasn’t on his A-game, and he allowed two runs on three hits while striking out one before being pulled with two outs. Replacing the southpaw with the southpaw, Rylan Kaufman came back into the match to get the final out of the inning. Due to the pitching staff floundering throughout the game, the South Siders hoped their offense could complete the comeback one last time. Spoiler alert, they didn’t.
Offensively, they put together two three-run innings in the first and third, but the A’s continued to claw back. Four of the White Sox’s 10 hits were for extra bases, including doubles by Lenyn Sosa, Miguel Vargas and Ryan Galanie, with the fourth being a three-run bomb by Korey Lee that gave the South Siders the lead again. Even with 10 hits and seven runs, only Vargas and Luisangel Acuña had multi-hit days, and the Good Guys went 4-for-14 (.286) with runners in scoring position and allowed nine more on base as a team.
Still holding a spring training winning record, the White Sox will return home to Camelback Ranch on Wednesday to face the Los Angeles Angels. Southpaw Anthony Kay will be making his fourth start and has been solid so far in Cactus League play, holding a 2.35 ERA.
