Chicago – Everything went the Tigers’ way on Monday night.
Very little did on Tuesday.
With veteran Michael A. Taylor igniting the offense, the Chicago White Sox beat the Tigers, 8-1, on a windy night at Rate Field.
“Just lack of execution,” manager AJ Hinch said. “That’s what happens at this level. We gave them extra opportunities. … You give them extra outs, extra swings, you can walk yourself into some bad situations. That’s what happened tonight.”
Taylor drew a bases loaded walk in the fourth and hit a two-out, three-run homer in the sixth off lefty Tyler Holton. And both of those came after potentially inning-ending plays were not executed.
It was a bullpen game for the Tigers, and until the sixth inning, it was humming right along. Andrew Benintendi, the White Sox lefty-swinging clean-up hitter, seemed to be the target point of bullpen decisions.
He opened the game with Beau Brieske and until the seventh inning, he was the only right-handed pitcher Benintendi faced.
BOX SCORE: White Sox 8, Tigers 1
Brieske got four outs, striking out Benintendi, and then gave way to lefty Brant Hurter. Hurter got six outs and struck out four, exiting after he struck out Benintendi with a runner on in the fifth.
Right-hander Brenan Hanifee took over from there and should’ve been out of the fifth inning in two pitches.
He got right-handed hitting Austin Slater to bounce one back to him, but instead of starting an inning-ending double-play, Hanifee made an errant throw to second base. That was the first costly mistake.
Hanifee proceeded to walk Edgar Quero and then Taylor with the bases loaded to force in a run.
Hanifee regrouped with a clean fifth and got the White Sox batting order to Benintendi again.
Holton took over in the sixth and started his outing by dispatching Benintendi. This time on a ground out to second baseman Gleyber Torres, who made a slick backhand play going to his right.
With a runner at first base and one out, Holton got Quero to hit a ball up the middle. If Holton had let the ball go by, it would have been an inning-ending force out at second. Instead, he deflected the ball away from shortstop Trey Sweeney.
Second costly misplay.
Taylor followed, hitting Holton’s second pitch into the seats in left-center.
“We got what we wanted a couple of times and didn’t finish plays,” Hinch said.
Smith bullied the Tigers for 5.1 innings with a lively four-seam fastball that he was pouring in at 96.7 to 98 mph, up from his season average of 95. The Tigers managed just three singles off him, two by Riley Greene, and struck out six times.
And the Tigers’ offense, which produced 13 runs and five home runs on Monday, faced a very different challenge with White Sox right-handed starter Slade Smith.
“He was doing a good job,” said Tigers’ catcher Dillon Dingler. “He had some funky stuff. I think his timing and tempo was throwing us off a little bit. Also, he was shoving the four-seamer on the inner part of the plate. If you can consistently do that, the spin is always going to work off that.
“I wish we would’ve got to him quicker. I feel like it would’ve set us up but that’s not how it went.”
Dingler, who played despite dealing with a migraine headache, drove in the Tigers’ lone run with a double in the seventh.
Things got ugly in the final two innings.
“I feel like we didn’t get them in many good counts,” Dingler said. “I feel like we were pitching from behind, especially in the latter part of the game and it ended up biting us a little bit.”
The White Sox scored twice more in the seventh off rookie Dylan Smith. Slater ripped a two-out, two-run double. And in the eighth, they strung three singles and a walk to score two runs off Chase Lee.
“We didn’t have a good night, bottom line,” Hinch said.
The loss ends the Tigers’ 11-game winning streak on the South Side of Chicago and drops their season record to 40-22.
@cmccosky
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