Strong Lynn start lone highlight as White Sox get swept by Blue Jays
Lance Lynn did all he could to help the White Sox win Game 1 of a doubleheader against the Blue Jays Thursday at Guaranteed Rate Field.
He also gave his potential trade value a nice little bump.
In his best start of the season, Lynn allowed 1 hit over 7 scoreless innings while striking out 11 and throwing 102 pitches.
It wasn't enough, as Toronto starter Jose Berrios also allowed 1 hit over 7 scoreless innings.
The game was still 0-0 in the 11th when the Jays chipped away with 7 hits off relievers Aaron Bummer and Bryan Shaw and beat the Sox 6-2.
Oscar Colas drove in the White Sox's first run in the bottom of the 11th with an RBI double and Andrew Vaughn added a run-scoring single, but it was another rough showing by the offense.
The bats showed a little life in Game 2, and the Sox took a 3-1 lead on Eloy Jimenez's 2-run homer in the third inning.
Toronto rallied back for a 5-4 win and completed a six-game sweep of the season series. The White Sox (37-52) are now a season-high 15 games under .500.
"Keep playing hard," manager Pedro Grifol said. "Just keep playing the game. What are we going to do? We've got a ton of games left, we've got to prepare ourselves every day and play baseball. We can't do anything about these two games here today or the game we played on Tuesday. We've got to let that go and get ready for St. Louis tomorrow."
Lynn has been a very good major-league starter for most of his 12-year career, but the first half of this season has largely been a downer.
With the all-star break approaching, the 36-year-old righty is 5-8 with a 6.03 ERA while leading the majors with 22 home runs allowed.
"It could have been a lot better," Lynn said of his first-half showing. "You look at some of the good games I've had and I've had some really bad ones, too. All in all, if you look at ERA and wins and losses, it's been the worst first half of my career.
"But I'm striking out guys at an elite pace, so I've just got to figure out how to make it start after start and keep building off of it and not have any more clunkers."
Lynn ranks fifth in MLB with 127 strikeouts and he's seventh with an 11.9 strikeout rate per 9 innings. His cut fastball baffled a strong Blue Jays lineup in Game 1.
"To be honest with you, I've got more stuff than I've ever had in my career," Lynn said. "So it's kind of a weird feeling when you look at the numbers of win/loss and ERA being as bad as they are. There's a lot of good I've done, it just doesn't look like it. I've just got to keep going and hopefully everything kind of evens out at the end of the year. If I keep doing what I'm doing, it should."
The big question is - are the White Sox going to trade Lynn before the Aug. 1 deadline?
He's an obvious candidate, given the 6-foot-5, 270-pounder is in the final season of a two-year, $38 million contract. The deal does have an $18 million club option for 2024 but includes a $1 million buyout.
Lynn has been traded at the deadline before - in 2018 from the Twins to the Yankees - so he knows the drill.
"That's the business of it," Lynn said. "Usually at the trade deadline, you're either going for it or you're out of it. So hopefully we can put a nice stretch together here and make them add and we can have a chance to make a run at it.
"The mindset's there. The work's there. Everybody's doing everything they can. We've just got to win games, and that's where were at. We've got to start winning games or none of that matters, to be honest. That's where we're at, we've got to win baseball games."