Bauer, Indians snap Sox' winning streak at 6

By Scot Gregor

sgregor@dailyherald.com

Dating back to May 5, the White Sox had been creating quite a stir.

Their 10-3 record over the stretch was the best in baseball, and the Sox took a six-game winning streak into Tuesday night's game against the Indians at U.S. Cellular Field.

The White Sox found a way to beat Cleveland ace Corey Kluber in the opener of a four-game series, but they came up short against another tough right-hander starter - Trevor Bauer.

"He was great," manager Robin Ventura said after the Sox fell to the Indians 3-1. "I think he's deceptive enough where he shoots it up with his fastball so when you can do that and locate it and kind of control the top of the zone and throw the curveball that he does, it's extremely tough to lay off the curveball.

"And I think that's really what he does. It's kind of his delivery and being able to go low and shoot it up with a pretty good curveball."

Bauer (3-1) shut the Sox down over 7⅓ innings, allowing 1 run on 4 hits.

White Sox starter Jose Quintana (2-4) pitched well enough to win, giving up 2 runs on 8 hits in 7 innings.

"Both guys were great," Ventura said of the opposing starters. "Q was tough as well. They just scratched across a couple more than we did.

"Good pitching. You're going to run into this where you've got to be able to scratch and get something out of it. Tonight we had the one inning where we had bases loaded and had a threat there, we just didn't get a hit.

"Otherwise, these guys will bounce back tomorrow and put this one behind them and crank it back up."

Quintana has been a hard-luck pitcher in the past, and the trend is continuing this season. In seven of his eight starts, the Sox have scored 2 runs or less.

"I felt pretty good," Quintana said. "All of my stuff continued working very good like my last start. That's all I try to do, but Bauer threw a pretty good game. It was a tough game."

The White Sox scored their lone run in the fourth inning, on Avisail Garcia's RBI single.

They could have come up with more, but Bauer struck out Alexei Ramirez with the bases loaded to wiggle out of a jam.

"He was absolutely in control of his pitches.," Melky Cabrera said of Bauer. "He was mixing the pitches, inside, outside. Good fastball, good cutter, the curveball was good also. His cutter was nasty. He had a very good night."

The White Sox will now look to start a new run of success.

"You just put it behind you," Ventura said. "I think those guys, they have a lot of deception, a lot of movement with pitches. You're going to run into that on occasion. Some guys have some good stuff, too. We're not the only one with guys that can pitch. You just have to be able to put it out of your mind and come back."

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