One minute Lance Lynn was throwing a no-hitter in the seventh inning against the best team in baseball, trying to end a nine-game Chicago White Sox losing streak.
But the Sox went from no-no to “Oh, no” in the blink of an eye, imploding in a stunning 12-3 loss to the Tampa Bay Rays before 28,462 at Guaranteed Rate Field.
Lynn and relievers Aaron Bummer and Jimmy Lambert combined to give up 10 runs on nine hits in the wild seventh, extending the losing streak to 10 games, the Sox’s longest since 2013.
The Sox fell to 7-21, their worst start to a season since 1948, and are tied with the Kansas City Royals at the bottom of the American League Central. They’re 0-6 against the Rays, who hit five home runs in the final three innings and improved to a major-league-best 23-5.
“I don’t go back and look at history and look at what other teams have done,” manager Pedro Grifol said. “I’m sure it’s been done before. Teams feel like the sky is falling on top of them, and all of a sudden they catch a break here and there and they’re off and running. I don’t feel this is over by any means.”
As the pounding continued, chants of “Sell the team” echoed throughout the ballpark.
Making the day a complete disaster, Luis Robert was pulled in the second inning for not running hard on a grounder to the pitcher in the first. Grifol called it a “mental lapse” that needed to be addressed.
Robert said he “played conservative” with a sore left hamstring, and his mistake was not telling Grifol about it beforehand. He said he told Eloy Jiménez and Elvis Andrus, and one of them told Grifol after the first.
“I knew if I said something to him, he probably wouldn’t let me play,” Robert said.
Robert didn’t seem to understand the gravity of his benching, smiling as he answered questions about Grifol’s decision.
“Yes, I understand the decision he made because he didn’t know,” Robert said. “People that didn’t know what was going on, you could think it was a lack of effort on my part. People that know me, they know I’m always doing my best and running hard down the line.”
The Sox season, already on the brink, could be all but over by the end of the current homestand if they don’t turn things around quickly.
At least Lynn came out of hibernation before Wander Franco’s leadoff home run in the seventh began the 10-run outburst. Grifol called Lynn “phenomenal.”
“I’m back to being me,” Lynn said. “I need to build off tonight.”
But then it all fell apart as the Rays wound up sending 14 batters to the plate in the seventh.
Lynn said he wasn’t thinking about a no-hitter in the seventh.
“I had a no-hitter?” he said.
Really? You didn’t know?
“I know I had a loss, so that doesn’t (bleeping) matter,” said Lynn, who dropped to 0-4 with a 7.16 ERA in seven starts.
Sox pitchers posted a 6.01 ERA over the first nine games of the losing streak, and the staff’s 5.65 ERA in April was on an early pace to surpass the franchise-worst mark of 5.41 in 1934.
It has been so comical of late that Sox radio analyst Darrin Jackson referred to a play Friday as “definitely Little League” during the WMVP-AM 1000 broadcast. The Rays scored on a pop-up when a runner on first tagged up after seeing no one covering second. The Sox then ignored the runner on third, who tagged up and came home. Even Little Leaguers might have been offended by the comparison.
Grifol was visibly annoyed by the mental mistake after Friday’s game, most of which he watched from his office after being thrown out of his second straight game by the same umpire, Marvin Hudson.
So what can Grifol do?
Before Saturday’s game I asked if he believed in having team meetings this early in the season.
“Do you know if we have had some or not?” he replied.
Um, no.
“I believe in anything that helps us get back to where we need to get back to,” he continued. “Those are things I’ll just keep in house. Things that we do in there, we just keep in there.”
Sounds like a “yes.” Or maybe a “Stay out of Sox business”?
At least the Sox couldn’t be accused of quitting under Grifol — that is before Robert stopped running Saturday.
Grifol said it was not a “common occurrence” and that Robert is a “hard worker.”
“I just spoke to him and told him we have to run hard down the line, that’s it,” Grifol said.
But the collapse, the losing streak and Robert’s lack of hustle can’t be ignored by Sox fans who have thrown their hands in the air and given up on the season.
When a team that supposedly has as much talent as the Sox starts out this poorly, it doesn’t reflect well on the manager. Fortunately for Grifol, general manager Rick Hahn absolved him and his coaching staff of any blame Thursday during his “Put it on me” pronouncement.
Sox fans are more than willing to put it on Hahn — and executive vice president Ken Williams. Still, it’s Grifol’s job to get the current roster out of the skid, and he repeated Saturday that injuries are no excuse.
If they don’t recover, it will be Hahn’s job to start the fire sale. With the division-leading Minnesota Twins nine games ahead of the Sox and coming to town Tuesday, it could be a do-or-die week.
“Everyone’s trying, but trying doesn’t get the job done,” starter Lucas Giolito said after Friday’s loss. “We’ve got to do it. We’re not, so it’s frustrating. The other thing I don’t want is guys to get so frustrated that we’re going into at-bats tight or we’re playing defense tight or we’re pitching tight.
“When we’re going good, we’re relaxed, we’re having fun. It’s hard to do that when you’re losing.”
This week the Sox ended a 25-inning scoreless streak. The worst Sox team in the last 70 years might have been the 1948 edition that started 7-24 to fall 15½ games out of first by May 29. They beat Hall of Fame-bound Cleveland ace Bob Feller on May 30 in the first game of a doubleheader, ending a 28-inning scoreless streak.
That’s White Sox symmetry in a nutshell.
()
