There’s something about Reynaldo Lopez starting that sends the White Sox offense into the witness protection program.
Lopez is 0-2 after three starts this season, the latest an 8-1 tumble at the hands of the A’s Monday night. He struck out 10 over six innings, throwing 106 pitches. Most of the time giving up two runs in an outing of that duration would have a pitcher thinking “W,” but Lopez isn’t that lucky.
He has allowed four runs (three earned) in three starts and the Sox have lost all three despite his glittering 1.42 ERA.
"He gave us a great outing, worked through a few jams with minimal damage," manager Rick Renteria said. "At some point, we'll start to turn around the offensive side and give him some runs."
There wasn’t much glittering for the Sox on a cool, damp and breezy night in Oakland for their first game after three days of snow in Minneapolis. The Sox were in the game exactly as long as Lopez was in the game, keeping it 2-0. Once he left, the defense went into meltdown, a three-error seventh inning leading to three more runs as the A’s broke the game open.
The back-breaker was a bases-loaded, Jed Lowrie grounder with no outs that ate up Sox shortstop Tim Anderson as two runs scored. And Leury Garcia’s inability to pick up the ball cleanly after that set up the third run of the inning.
"Today was not one of our better days, obviously. We had a lot of things going on out there that were not common to our club, to be honest," Renteria said. "It has nothing to do with anything other than we had a bad game out there in the field. It requires a ton of focus to play a Major League Baseball game and we didn't do that today. A lot of little things that weren't pretty."
Oakland first baseman Matt Olson broke a scoreless tie with a home run leading off the fourth inning, to that point just the second earned run this season off Lopez. The first had been a homer by the Blue Jays’ Josh Donaldson. An inning later, a leadoff walk and a two-out Khris Davis double made it 2-0.
"I think I've done a very good job," Lopez said of his third straight quality start. "I've just tried to go deep into games, get six or seven innings, and then to keep the team in the game. At this point I'm happy with my job."
Meanwhile, A’s starter Daniel Mengden mystified the White Sox bats. Mengden came into the game with a 6.19 ERA in three starts. He struggled early, but after a two-out single from Welington Castillo in the fourth when the game was still scoreless, he set down the next 11 batters in succession while the A’s were building him a lead.
Mengden (2-2) was given a shot to finish what would have been his second career shutout. But Jose Abreu’s leadoff homer in the ninth ended the shutout and Mengden’s night.
The inning that took the Sox out of this one, the seventh, began after reliever Chris Volstad took over from Lopez and immediately walked No. 9 hitter Jonathan Lucroy. Matt Joyce bunted successfully as first baseman Abreu botched it for the first error of the inning. Marcus Semien’s single loaded the bases, but true ugliness didn’t arrive until Lowrie stepped up.
Lowrie gave the Sox a chance to get out of the inning with just one run allowed by hitting a routine grounder, but the Sox went all Keystone Cops. Anderson couldn’t get a glove on the ball as two runs scored, then Garcia, who had just come into the game ostensibly to play defense botched the pickup in left field, letting Semien go from first to third. Semien scored on a subsequent Davis double-play grounder.
The A’s added three more in the eighth with a bit of help from the Sox’s fourth error, this one in center by Adam Engel. The four errors were half as many as Chicago had made in the first dozen games combined.
John Hickey is a freelance reporter for the Chicago Tribune.
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