Lopez falling short in bid to stick in Chicago White Sox's rotation

The White Sox decided against adding a proven starting pitcher before Monday afternoon's trade deadline, for two reasons.

First, the cost would have been painfully high and general manager Rick Hahn was not motivated to deal away multiple top-end prospects after the spending the past three years building up a barren farm system.

Second, Hahn has faith the starting rotation behind Lucas Giolito and Dallas Keuchel is good enough to get the Sox where they want to go.

"We are going to have this young group go through a pennant race," Hahn said. "This young group ideally will be competing, knock on wood, deep into October. Those are invaluable experiences for young guys, whether it's (Dylan) Cease or a guy like Dane Dunning to experience that and have that something to fall back on for the next several years as we hope to continually to be in that spot."

Cease and Dunning slot in the White Sox's rotation behind Giolito and Keuchel, and both young right-handers are going to be put to the test in the mad dash through the rest of September.

Cease, who starts at Kansas City on Thursday night, is 4-1 with a 2.14 ERA over his last 6 starts. Dunning threw 5 no-hit innings his last time out. The big concern is Cease only has made 21 major-league starts since joining the Sox in July of last season and Dunning has a grand total of two.

A much bigger concern is the Sox's No. 5 starter.

Reynaldo Lopez tried to make another claim on the slot Wednesday night, but he was ineffective while lasting just 1⅔ innings against the Twins. The right-hander missed a month of the short season with a sore shoulder and hasn't been sharp since returning.

The White Sox fell to Minnesota 8-1 at Target Field in an all-around ugly game.

"It just was a bad night," manager Rick Renteria said after the Sox made 4 errors and were held to 4 hits. "Speaking to some of those guys on the field and in the dugout, just let them know that's not the type of baseball we play. That's not the way we go about it. But also, let them know let's put this one behind us because we've got very little time left. We don't have time to regurgitate it."

Lopez wiggled out of big trouble in the first inning when the Twins loaded the bases with no outs but failed to score.

In the second, Minnesota scored 3 runs, 2 of them unearned on a Nick Madrigal error, and Lopez was lifted with two outs. The White Sox will decide if Lopez is out of the rotation and Carlos Rodon is ready to return from a sore shoulder.