A frustrating loss

Blue Jays 1 White Sox 6

We really should have scored a bunch of runs against Carlos Rodon. In 5 innings, we had 6 hits and 2 walks against him. And 3 of those hits were doubles. But we only scored 1 run. There were some good long at-bats, but the guys we needed to drive home some runs didn’t do the job.

There were some good long at-bats. Rodon threw 106 hits in those 5 innings.

We had:

• Runners on first and third with one out, in the first inning. But Teoscar Hernandez and Randal Grichuk both struck out.
• In the second, Lourdes Gurriel led off with a double, Santiago Espinal singled to give us runners on the corners with no outs. We did score a run. Jonathan Davis hit a sac fly. But then Riley Adams and Marcus Semien both struck out.
• In the third, Bo doubled, and Vlad walked, but Teoscar struck out again, and Grichuk hit into a double play.
• The fourth was Rodon’s only 1, 2, 3 inning.
• The fifth started with Riley Adam’s first major league hit, a double (only a few feet from a home run). But again, we didn’t score.

Rodon had 8 strikeouts in those 5 innings.

Even after Rodon came out of the game, we couldn’t get the hit we needed. In the seventh, with one out, Semien singled, and Bo Bichette walked. When Bo walks, we should score. But Vlad had a rare strikeout on a full-count pitch and, after that, Semien was picked off of second. Something that can’t happen in a close game.

In all, we had 8 hits, and 4 walks. Four of the hits were doubles. But when you are 1 for 12 with RISP you aren’t going to score much.

Robbie Ray was terrific. Through 6 innings, he allowed just 4 hits, no walks, and 12 strikeouts.

Unfortunately, the seventh didn’t go as well. He got a strikeout, and then Andrew Vaughn lined one just over the right-field wall. Not crushed but sliced to the opposite field.

He threw 102 pitches, 72 strikes, in a very muggy night in Chicago.

He deserved better.

Rafael Dolis came in and had a rough time. He went walk, strikeout, single, walk to load the bases for Yoan Moncada. Not exactly what we wanted.

Trent Thornton had even more trouble in the eighth. Two ground balls that missed everyone and a walk to load the bases. Then a fly ball that I thought was out, but Davis caught it just in front of the wall in center. plenty deep to score a run. There was some bad luck there, if one of those ground balls went at a fielder it was a different inning.

Carl Edward, Jr came in with runners on the corners, and Adam Eaton popped one between the infield and the outfield. A triple made it a runway.

In the ‘baseball is like this’ file: In the fourth inning, Bo Bichette makes a great leaping grab of a line drive, amazing play. The next batter hits an easy ground ball at him, and Bo boots it and then throws it well high of Vlad. Thankfully Ray didn’t allow the runner to score.

The bullpen was terrible, but we lost the game by not scoring when we should have early in the game. If we scored some, it would have made life easier for the bullpen, and changed how the bullpen was used.

Jay of the Day: Ray (.194 WPA). And let’s give one to Riley Adams, for his first MLB hit, a double. And he looked good behind the plate.

Suckage: Thornton (-.305), Hernandez (-.215, 0 for 4, 3 strikeouts), Grichuk (-.190, 0 for 4, 1 strikeout) and Semien (-.090, plus getting picked off at second, 1 for 5).

We had 962 comments in the GameThread. I led us to utter defeat.