Mariners complete three-game sweep against White Sox
The Chicago White Sox traded their best player, starting pitcher Jose Quintana, to the Chicago Cubs on Thursday.
On Friday, the White Sox came out of the all-star break and hosted the Seattle Mariners in a three-game series at Guaranteed Rate Field.
Holding a 5-0 lead Sunday, the Sox fell apart and lost to the Mariners 7-6 in 10 innings.
Seattle swept the series, so let's ask the obvious question. Was the intensity down in the wake of the Quintana trade?
"We wish Q the best, obviously," said Derek Holland, who started for the White Sox on Sunday. "We're talking about him leaving, and we saw him perform very well today, too, so you've got to give hats off to him. But at the same time, we can't get caught up in those kinds of things.
"We've still got to play the game whether we lose a guy or we gain a guy, whatever it is. We've still got to show up every single day. To get caught up in something like that, it's just not right."
Powered by 2 home runs from all-star right fielder Avisail Garcia and catcher Omar Narvaez's first homer of the season, the Sox stormed out to a commanding lead.
The Mariners scored a run off Holland in the fourth inning and added 4 more in the fifth to tie the game. Danny Valencia's 3-run homer on a hanging breaking ball in the fifth was the key blow.
"It's frustrating," Holland said after pitching 5⅔ innings and allowing 7 runs (6 earned) on 7 hits. "I think it was a better pitching performance than obviously the line said. One pitch is what really killed me.
"We talked about it. Narvy was like, 'Maybe we should've went somewhere else. But at the same time, if I make that pitch everybody's looking at it like, 'Wow, that was a great pitch.' "
Trailing 6-5 in the seventh inning, Jose Abreu tied the game with a double.
Nelson Cruz decided the outcome in the 10th with a home run off Chris Beck.
Clean it up:
The White Sox were one of the worst defensive teams in baseball before the all-star break, and the sloppy play continued Sunday.
Shortstop Tim Anderson made his major-league leading 21st error that led to an unearned run in the fifth inning, and center fielder Alen Hanson made a pair of errors on the same play in the sixth.
After the game, manager Rick Renteria talked to his team about the importance of playing good defense.
"You want to keep it as clean as possible, period," Renteria said. "You play a major-league ballgame, you want to play every team as cleanly as possible because you know at any moment somebody can take advantage of those particular situations, beyond the fact that you end up having your pitcher work a little bit more than you would like."
Flip the switch:
Avisail Garcia launched a pair of home runs Sunday, the first time he has cleared the fences since June 20 at Minnesota and the first time at home since May 13.
Garcia was slowed by a sore knee and hand before playing in his first All-Star Game.
"He's been grinding throughout the whole year," manager Rick Renteria said. "He's a guy that is giving you every single effort on everything he does, whether it's backing up bases, running out groundballs, flyballs. So you end up fatiguing a little bit. I think that the all-star break might have given him a little charge, made him feel a little better.
"We're glad his knee is feeling good and his hand is feeling good, that he's continuing to put together some obviously very good at-bats. Staying and tracking on baseballs when they leave them where they shouldn't, putting a pretty good swing on them. He's a pretty strong guy."