There’s really not a-whole-lot to talk about from this one. White Sox hitters made Zach Britton and his near-5.00 ERA look rather dominant. Jose Quintana got off to a quick start retiring the first eight batters he faced, but then all of the sudden seemed to get exhausted, as his pitches got flat and the Orioles offense quickly came alive.
And that was basically it. Really. The score was 5-1 when Quintana was pulled from the game in the 4th inning and it remained there ’til the end, when we finally saw some positives.

It ain’t over ’til it’s over

With the score still at 5-1 after some nice bullpen work from Nate Jones and Donnie Veal, the Sox had one more shot in the top of the 9th. The Sox strung together a few hits and were able to produce a couple runs when Alexei Ramirez drove one back up the middle to bring home Alex Rios and Hector Gimenez and draw the game a bit closer.

After closer Jim Johnson came in and struck out Gordon Beckham, the Sox had indeed dropped 3 of the 4 in Baltimore, just as they did in Boston a little over a month ago … why bring that series up? That too was the series before the Sox headed into Detroit for a weekend series agains the Tigers. So this time, like back in July, the south siders head to Comerica Park not on the highest of notes.
I know, I know, the Tigers have already lost the current series agains the Royals and have to win Thursday night to avoid being swept. Regardless how both of these teams are currently playing, the Sox will either have a 2.0 or 3.0 game lead in the division before the two foes face off three times starting Friday evening.
And now, without further ado, here’s my possibly farfetched reach at why the Sox may have a little fire lit under their belly going forward …
What I look for in a loss that was never really too close is fight. The Sox have had an abundance of fight all year, so it’s not something I doubt. I mean half of their wins are comeback wins, for bleep’s sake. But when a team is pretty much out of it in a given game but fights hard at the very end to make it interesting is when I get excited.
Back in May, on the 15th to be exact, I was at the game against the Tigers in which the Sox jumped out to an early 6-0 lead only to head into the bottom of the 9th down 10-6. It was a game in which starter Jake Peavy was bitten by the big-inning bug and the likes of Will Ohman out of the bullpen certainly didn’t help. Nonetheless, the Sox scored two in the bottom of the 9th and lost on a Dayan Viciedo fly out on the warning track in right field with runners on 2nd and 3rd. While it was a heart breaker, I walked to my car after the game talking to my friend about how I really thought that valiant effort could ignite the team going forward. And that it did.
The Sox won 13 of their next 14 games, and I was not only correct, but correct in the most extreme sense. Hawk Harrelson mentions this phenomenon a lot, how you can’t underestimate the value of near comebacks, and it’s one thing I don’t think Hawk blows out of proportion.
While the comeback effort on Thursday afternoon was much less dramatic and exciting, it certainly could at least get the positive juices flowing a little bit going into Detroit, where we’ll certainly need the team to be on their A-game.
I know it may be a reach, as I mentioned earlier, but hey, it’s not the most unrealistic premise to ponder.

Rotation Worries?

I don’t want to shy away completely from discussing Jose Quintana’s outing, which will certainly have many surrounding the team worrying at least until the next time he takes the mound. It was strange to see him get so tired so early, as he seemed to have nothing left in the tank come the 4th inning.
Quintana is already in unchartered waters as far as innings pitched on the 2012 season, so it’s understandable that he is experiencing fatigue. But an excuse for the problem doesn’t make it any less worrisome.
GSB!’s very own Matt Hoeppner will touch on this and how the pitching staff should be approached going forward later on GrabSomeBench.com, so stay tuned for that!

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I know I strayed away from giving you a lot of numbers or statistics in the dissection of today’s game – I did that on purpose. There’s no need to beat around the bush here: the important series on this road trip is the upcoming one in Detroit. And the fact that the Tigers dropped the first two games in Kansas City only makes that more valid. If I told you the Sox would have a 2 or 3 game lead heading into Mo-Town four days ago, you would’ve taken it. And while this past series in Baltimore was frustrating, let’s not get too hung up on it.

The Sox can turn around these woes entirely and have this ugly 4-game set forgotten about if they do well against the Tigers. We’ve been extremely resilient all year, and we’ll need a little more of that magic to work our way starting tomorrow night.