Scholtens stays on attack in bounce-back outing

BALTIMORE -- White Sox starter Jesse Scholtens began August with three quality starts, but then struggled in his past two outings.

On Tuesday night, the right-hander returned to form by holding the first-place Orioles to one run over 5 1/3 innings in Chicago’s 9-3 loss at Camden Yards.

"He didn't beat around the bush,” manager Pedro Grifol said. “He just came at these guys. That's what you got to do here. You got to use the ballpark as well. They got a bunch of left-handed hitters.

“You got to live on the outer part of the plate, keep them honest on the inside half, and that's what he did."

Scholtens demonstrated tremendous control in keeping the ball down, holding Baltimore to six singles and no walks to go with one strikeout, while retiring the first nine batters he faced.

It was a nice bounce-back outing after Scholtens allowed five runs in each of his previous two starts against Colorado and Oakland.

"[I was] erring on the side of being aggressive, just with the dimensions of the ballpark the way they are and [Baltimore] being a very aggressive team, in general,” Scholtens said. “[I was] trying to be aggressive in the strike zone and let them kind of swing, and hopefully get into good counts."

"Definitely a good bounce back. That’s a pretty good lineup over there, top to bottom. Being able to come off of those tough ones and having one like [catcher Korey Lee] and I had tonight, that definitely feels good."

Adam Frazier delivered a run-scoring single off Scholtens in the fifth, but then the 29-year-old induced flyouts by Adley Rutschman and Gunnar Henderson to end the threat. Scholtens departed with the game tied at 1.

Anthony Santander’s three-run double off reliever Aaron Bummer (4-3) in the seventh put the Orioles in front to stay.

Baltimore scored five runs in the eighth inning to blow the game wide open for the second night in a row as the Orioles won for the ninth time in their past 12 meetings against the White Sox since the start of 2022.

Second baseman Lenyn Sosa went 3-for-3 with a homer, but a couple of questionable decisions at the plate late overshadowed what was shaping up to be a promising night. He connected on a solo shot off Orioles starter Dean Kremer to open the scoring in the third, but in the seventh, with two men on, Sosa elected to bunt instead of swinging away.

Then after his base hit in the ninth, Sosa was caught off first base on a long fly ball to center field. The double play ended the game, which drew the attention of his skipper.

"This is the big leagues,” Grifol said. “These are not fundamentals that happen in the big leagues only. These are fundamentals that happen all the way up the system. So, this is not new to them. We are here to continue to instruct and educate and remind, and all that stuff, but make no mistake about it, this is baseball. And baseball is baseball all the way up the system and here in the big leagues.”

It is a theme that Grifol has been harping on for awhile now, how the club needs to play heads-up baseball to have a better chance at building some consistency these final few weeks of the regular season.

Monday night’s series opener was a learning moment for Oscar Colás when he overthrew the cutoff man and allowed the Orioles an extra base. On Tuesday, it was the last two at-bats for Sosa.

“These are things that we already did talk to him about,” Grifol said. “We will remind him again tomorrow, and we got to let him know this is not the type of baseball that is going to take us where we want to go.

“These are things we have to clean up as a group, they have to clean up as individuals if they want to be a part of this."