White Sox remain 'up to the challenge' after latest setback

CHICAGO – Even with five wins in six games at Minnesota and Cleveland to finish the first half, the White Sox didn’t have to be reminded about falling short of lofty 2022 expectations as they began the stretch run Friday night with a disappointing 8-2 loss to the Guardians at Guaranteed Rate Field.

“I view it as our fate is in our own hands,” White Sox general manager Rick Hahn said prior to Friday’s setback. “We have plenty of games left against the teams we are chasing, and we’ve got the talent to play at the level we’ve seen over the past several days. Do that more consistently than not, and I think we’ll be in a good spot.

“We’ve got work to do, don’t get me wrong. We’ve played in a way in the first half that made it so these last two months are going to be a lot more exciting than the last two months of last season were. I think we are up to the challenge.”

The White Sox (46-47) now have one less game left against the Guardians (47-44), who improved to 7-3 vs. the South Siders this season. Cleveland also didn’t give starter Lucas Giolito and the White Sox much time to build off their first half closing momentum, scoring four in the first inning and two in the second.

Andrés Giménez launched a two-run first-inning home run off Giolito (6-6), whose 1.77 ERA against the Guardians entering the game was the lowest among active Major League pitchers (minimum 70 innings pitched). Giolito yielded six runs on nine hits over three innings, but the numbers were a bit deceiving.

Steven Kwan opened the game with a single to right featuring a 103.1 mph exit velocity, per Statcast, and Giménez’s blast had an exit velocity of 98.4 mph. In between, Giolito allowed José Ramírez’s bloop double down the left-field line at 78.6 mph, Josh Naylor’s single at 74.8 mph and Owen Miller’s sacrifice fly at 73.9 mph.

Not exactly overwhelming contact against the White Sox right-hander.

“You saw the same rally I did. How many balls were hit hard? Two hard, but the other ones were well-placed,” White Sox manager Tony La Russa said. “It’s a tough way to start the game. You initiate less than good contact and you don’t get an out for it.”

“Never fun giving up a bunch of runs early and nine hits,” Giolito said. “It's kind of a tough one to assess because a lot of the hits weren't hit hard. I felt like they were relatively well-executed pitches. The ones I would really like back are the homer, a bad first-pitch changeup, and the first base hit of the game was not the best slider to Kwan.”

Giolito exited after 64 pitches, with Jimmy Lambert, Matt Foster, Tanner Banks, José Ruiz and Joe Kelly finishing the final six innings with a doubleheader Saturday. But the White Sox have off-days Monday and Thursday around a two-game series in Colorado, and their 27th man Saturday will be right-handed hurler Davis Martin.

“At that point, you’re better off turning the page,” La Russa said of the early Giolito removal. “He had done his part, and we stayed in the game. He knows we needed innings. He definitely wanted to go back out there. Sometimes it’s just not your day.”

“I've made some good adjustments but I've got a lot more in the tank than what I'm showing,” said Giolito, who has been working on mechanical adjustments, especially with his lower half, to get more force and power behind what he’s throwing. “It's frustrating because it's probably just one little adjustment away that I just haven't gotten to yet."

It was a loss derailing the White Sox yet again from getting to above .500, a place they haven’t been since a 22-21 ledger on May 25. They also fell to 19-26 at home, which is the worst record in the division aside from Kansas City.

There’s time for the White Sox to prove Hahn’s words true, with three games against the Guardians this weekend ending 19 straight against the AL Central (currently 8-8). But with 69 games remaining on the schedule overall, the room for tough losses like Friday’s is dwindling.

“It was just a rough outing. It sucks,” Giolito said. “It's a results game and getting poor results, putting our team in a hole, I've got to find a way to be better."