Solo power a mixed bag for White Sox

CHICAGO -- Tanner Banks was asleep on the White Sox flight home from Seattle late Sunday night when he received pitching coach Ethan Katz’s text about starting Monday’s contest against the Rangers at Guaranteed Rate Field.

Banks’ first career start resulted in a 5-2 victory for Texas, but the southpaw certainly did the job to give the White Sox a chance.

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“I was excited going into it,” said Banks, who allowed three runs over 3 2/3 innings with three strikeouts and no walks. “To be able to check that box that I started a game in the big leagues. Really to go out there, take the ball and give the team as much length as I could to put us in the best position moving forward, especially since it was a bullpen game.

“After I finished, Ethan told me, ‘If you would have told me you could pitch three innings today, that would have been great.’ And honestly, if they would have let me continue to pitch, I would have continued to pitch to be able to put us in the best position possible, runs permitting as well.”

This start by Banks made White Sox history, as it ended a streak of 191 consecutive games started by a right-hander. Per Elias, it was the longest active streak in baseball, second longest in White Sox history (194 from Sept. 7, 1933 - May 19, 1935) and the longest in MLB since Cleveland (417) from 2017-21.

It also was taking the spot of Mike Clevinger, who currently is on the injured list due to right biceps inflammation. Nicholas Padilla, who joined the White Sox Monday with Lance Lynn going on the bereavement list, followed with three strikeouts over 1 2/3 scoreless and Jesse Scholtens completed the three-person quality start by getting the final two outs in the sixth.

“They went in and threw strikes, they competed, they didn’t walk any guys, attacked the strike zone,” White Sox manager Pedro Grifol said. “They got beat a couple of times here and there, but for the most part they were aggressive in the strike zone against really good hitters.

“You tell me before the game those guys would give us six innings of a quality start, I’m taking it. They got us to the heart of our bullpen. We had opportunities to get the big hit and we didn't tonight.”

Monday’s contest ended up being yet another microcosm of the White Sox season as a whole. They looked listless for the first five innings against the Rangers' Andrew Heaney, flexed their muscles with back-to-back home runs from Andrew Vaughn and Luis Robert Jr. in the sixth and then had chances to win in the eighth and ninth.

Grifol has preached for a couple of weeks about his offense getting the ball in the air, taking advantage of the power throughout this lineup. But the last nine homers for the White Sox have been of the solo variety.

“That’s the idea behind some of the lineup changes, to see if we can get some guys who can battle some at-bats and draw a walk here and there, put up crooked numbers when they hit those home runs,” Grifol said. “I’m happy we are hitting the homer. I like homers. We just have to find a way to get guys on prior to them. Turn those solos into crooked numbers.”

“We scored a couple of runs via the base hit in Seattle, but a lot of it has been solo home runs,” Vaughn said. “We’ve just got to string some things together and get it rolling.”

Here’s the bad news/good news part for the White Sox. They have lost seven of their last nine and dropped to 31-43, which is just two off their season-worst for games below .500. But Minnesota lost again, meaning the Twins sit below .500 at 36-37 atop the American League Central with a 5 1/2 game lead over Grifol’s crew.

This context has bred a bit of White Sox frustration, mixed with some level of hope.

“It’s definitely both,” Vaughn said. “I was talking with Pedro before the game and I was like, ‘man, we keep losing, but you look up and we’re not losing ground.’ We’ve got 90-something games left I think, there’s time to do it. But got to start sooner rather than later.”

“Overall, we had a chance to win a ballgame that Clevinger, it was his turn, but he wasn’t able to do it,” Grifol said. “We battled all the way to the end.”