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Sunday served as a pretty good summary of the first half for the Chicago White Sox.
Starter Lucas Giolito allowed two hits in seven innings. The opponent, in this case the St. Louis Cardinals, made three errors.
Still, the Sox didn’t win.
The Cardinals tied the game in the ninth on a grounder that went off the glove of reliever Kendall Graveman. They went ahead in the 10th on an RBI double by Paul DeJong and held on to beat the Sox 4-3 in front of 29,769 at Guaranteed Rate Field.
“This one hurt to finish up the first half,” manager Pedro Grifol said.
Safe to say, the Sox have not played up to expectations.
They hoped to bounce back after going 81-81 last season and contend again in the American League Central. Instead they go to the All-Star break a season-high 16 games under .500 (38-54) and eight games out of first place.
“We’ve played a lot of tough ballgames, close ballgames,” Grifol said. “We’ve lost a ton of them. There’s nothing I can say about that. We’ve just got to keep going. We’ve got to take this break, come back and continue to play baseball. Learn from these and continue to play.
“These hurt. But we’ve got to make adjustments and that’s just a part of it.”
Thirty-three of the last 34 games have been decided by four runs or fewer, with the Sox going 15-19 in the stretch.
“Offensively we’re still creating a lot of opportunities, but we haven’t been able to get our offense going consistently,” said second baseman Elvis Andrus, who had two hits and one RBI.
Giolito, whose name has been mentioned in trade speculation, continued his strong stretch on the mound, allowing two runs on the two hits with five strikeouts and three walks in seven innings.
He said he has been able to keep outside noise from being a factor by focusing on his routine.
“(It’s) having a consistent daily routine where I can look at what writers are saying, I can look at what fans are saying away from the field, but when it comes time to go to work, I go to work and block out everything else,” Giolito said. “When it’s time to pitch, I expect myself to perform at a very high level.”
The two runs against him came in the fourth on a homer by Willson Contreras on a 3-2 changeup.
The Sox were down one run in the seventh when Luis Robert Jr. led off the inning with a double. Jake Burger reached on an infield hit with two outs and Yasmani Grandal walked to load the bases.
Carlos Pérez’s grounder to third should have ended the inning, but Nolan Gorman didn’t field it cleanly and a run scored on the error to tie the score at 2.
One inning later, Zach Remillard singled and scored on a sacrifice fly by Robert to give the Sox a 3-2 lead.
The Cardinals loaded the bases with one out in the ninth. Alec Burleson chopped one back up the middle. The ball deflected off Graveman’s glove to shortstop Tim Anderson, with the only option getting the runner at second for the second out. Lars Nootbaar scored on the sequence, making it 3-3.
DeJong put the Cardinals ahead with the double in the 10th against reliever Keynan Middleton.
The Sox had runners on first and third with one out in the 10th when Remillard attempted a bunt. First baseman Paul Goldschmidt charged, fielded and tagged Remillard while keeping Gavin Sheets at third.
“(Remillard) chose to do that,” Grifol said. “But he’s good at it, so I don’t fault him one bit. That’s part of his game. That’s one way to stay out of a double play. He just bunted it a little bit too hard to Goldschmidt, who is holding the runner on.
“That wasn’t the game. Actually it’s not a bad idea. We’ve seen him do it over and over again since he’s been here. It just went back to Goldschmidt and he made the play.”
JoJo Romero struck out Anderson to end the game.
There will be plenty to reflect on during the break for the Sox, who have lost seven of nine.
“A great time for us to reset, regroup and think about what we need to do to overcome in the second half,” Andrus said.
