'One thing after another': Homers sink Sox

DETROIT -- Dallas Keuchel didn’t need many words to dissect his rough start in an 11-5 loss to the Tigers Saturday evening at Comerica Park, which ended a five-game winning streak for the White Sox (49-33).

“It started out pretty good and then it was terrible,” Keuchel said. “That really sums it up.

“I felt good. I thought we had a good gameplan going in. Some early strikes. Then just one thing after another. Not much I can kind of expand upon.”

The White Sox scored two in the first off Tarik Skubal, and it looked as if it would be business as usual for the South Siders, who entered with an 18-2 mark against the Tigers (37-46) in their last 20 head-to-head matchups and a 30-9 ledger since 2019. But Eric Haase’s inside-the-park homer in the fourth changed the momentum, if not the final outcome.

Keuchel walked Jonathan Schoop and Miguel Cabrera with one out while holding a 2-0 lead. Haase followed with a line drive to center on an 0-1 pitch that was missed on a diving attempt by Billy Hamilton.

Comerica Park is the wrong place to miss a line drive to center, with the fence 420 feet away, and Haase circled the bases without a throw home.

“It looked like the ball had underspin and looked like it was going to carry,” White Sox manager Tony La Russa said. “All of a sudden, it sunk. He’s an aggressive player, and just one of those plays. The ball got by him, and it’s a tough break for Dallas, it’s three runs. But I don’t fault him for what he read and how he tried to make the play.”

That sentiment on Hamilton’s effort was shared by Keuchel, although he didn’t seem thrilled with the outfield’s defensive positioning in a very spacious ballpark.

“Billy is out there looking out for us as pitchers and trying to make plays not only for himself but the team,” Keuchel said. “I don’t have any problems with what happened on the play. That’s a big league play. I just have a concern because you don’t let your best athletes play anymore. It’s a numbers game. You play at the wall here in Detroit so anything over your head is going to be a tank.

“Everybody is concerned about giving up slugging percentage now. I’m a ground ball pitcher, so even if I give up a hard-hit ball, it’s usually going to fall in front of somebody. Or if not, it’s going to go over the fence. So I don’t understand how some of these numbers translate to playing deep, and I’ve been having a problem with that for years. Just overall, watching the game and watching guys.”

In four-plus innings and 79 pitches, Keuchel allowed seven hits and seven runs. The White Sox actually worked around Haase’s first of two home runs to grab a 5-3 lead in the fifth thanks in part to Leury García’s two-run homer, but Detroit scored four in the bottom half of the inning to regain the advantage once and for all.

Detroit’s last run of the fifth scored when Ryan Burr walked Robbie Grossman and Zack Short back-to-back, forcing home a run, with a pair of 3-2 pitches going against him in both instances, although Statcast showed both pitches in the zone. Pitching coach Ethan Katz disagreed with home-plate umpire Tom Hallion’s calls and was ejected.

“He really said three or four words, they weren’t vulgar or anything,” said La Russa of the ejection. “Tom admitted that. He had looked over there once and he said he had listened to it from the bench and he heard it again and he wasn’t going to take it. Not a big thing in the game.”

Saturday’s contest started the second half of the season for the White Sox, who began the day with a commanding six-game lead over Cleveland in the AL Central. La Russa was pleased with the first-half performance but still didn’t want to move from the day-to-day improvement.

“Guys have been ready to play every day,” La Russa said. “The games that we’ve gotten beat, we’ve made an effort to get back in. The talent’s here. It’s about head and heart and guts and the need to understand that we need to improve. The level that we’re playing at now is not good enough, if we don’t get better from here to the end.

“You can’t try any harder than we’ve tried. Can’t deal with the challenges any more than we’ve done. The more you play, you recognize the little things you fix can be a game changer, could be something bigger. It’s an individual sport for a team.”