Meltdown by Santos ruins night for White Sox

It was 70's night at U.S. Cellular Field on Friday.

At least, that's what the promotion was supposed to be.

Unfortunately for the White Sox, it turned into April night.

Remember the opening month of the season, specifically when the Sox hosted the A's April 11-13?

If you were able to exorcise those demons, congratulations.

The White Sox played three straight 10-inning games against Oakland and lost two of three as Matt Thornton blew a pair of save opportunities and Tony Pena blew one.

Thornton hasn't appeared to fully recover from the early meltdowns against the Athletics, and now you have to seriously wonder if Sergio Santos is in the same sinking boat.

Everything was set up so well for the Sox in this one.

Paul Konerko homered in the first inning and set a franchise record of having an extra-base hit in nine straight games.

The first-place Indians and second-place Tigers both lost, and it looked the surging White Sox were going to gain more ground in the AL Central.

Santos came on in the ninth inning with a 5-3 lead and easily retired Oakland's first two hitters, Cliff Pennington and Conor Jackson.

Santos then got two quick strikes on Josh Willingham, but he would up issuing a walk and — poof — it all fell apart.

“I mean, there's no excuse,” a shaken Santos said after the Sox fell 7-5 as the A's snapped a 10-game losing streak. “I just flat-out didn't get the job done. I don't even know what to say.”

There's really not much to say.

“This one hurt, to be honest with you,” manager Ozzie Guillen said. “I'm not going to lie. (Santos) just lost it.”

After walking Willingham, Santos went 0-2 on Hideki Matsui before giving up an RBI single.

With Jesse Crain apparently unable to go after pitching Wednesday and Thursday, Santos stayed in and walked Daric Barton. He then hit Kurt Suzuki to load the bases and Scott Sizemore followed with a 3-run double.

Game over.

“I couldn't put them way,” Santos said. “I got out there, two outs, went 0-2 and just couldn't put them away. When I walked him (Willingham), same thing, had Matsui 0-2 and just couldn't put him away. Unexcusable. Just, I didn't do it.”

The slider is Santos' best pitch, but he simply couldn't throw it after getting ahead on Willingham. That's the real reason why he pinned the White Sox with such a painful loss.

“I just didn't have a feel for it,” Santos said. “I did, but I just couldn't repeat it consistently. That ended up kind of messing me up because it's usually my put-away pitch.”

While Guillen was just as stunned as everyone else who watched the game, he didn't say Santos is out as closer.

“He tried to be too aggressive,” Guillen said. “It was the type of thing where you have to learn with experience. This kid doesn't have much experience. At that particular time he had been throwing the ball very well for us.

“He has to keep his head up and keep fighting. There's no doubt it hurts but in the meanwhile you have to be ready in 24 hours for another game.

“(Santos) is the guy we thought was the best man we had out there. He's going to continue to go out there. I don't know about tomorrow. Not because of what happened today. He's been pitching a few days in a row and maybe it's Crain tomorrow. But I'm not going to lose any confidence in him because of a game. He has to learn from that. Hopefully this game will make him tougher and make him learn from this.”

sgregor@dailyherald.com