Clevinger shines in first Sox start at home, but bullpen breaks down in 6-3 loss to Orioles
The White Sox weren't awful over the first two weeks of the season, but they weren't very good, either.
Back at home against the Orioles Friday night, the Sox's 5-8 record was blah at best, bleak at worst.
Which way was Sox general manager Rick Hahn leaning?
"Frankly, any 13-game stretch is not necessarily indicative of the other 149 games," he said.
Hard to argue with that.
"That said, every team wants to get off to a good start," Hahn continued. "We're disappointed in how the start has gone thus far. There have been times when the starting pitching was probably the culprit for keeping us out of games. There have been times when the bullpen was to blame.
"Both of those two stepped up in Minnesota. So it's just really a matter of getting each element clicking at the same time. I think the simpler way of explaining it is we know we have something to prove, and we know we haven't proven it yet."
The White Sox had a perfect opportunity to start proving something in Friday's game against Baltimore at Guaranteed Rate Field.
But instead of holding a 3-0 lead in the seventh inning, the bullpen sprung another lead and the Orioles rallied for a 6-3 win.
Making his first home start for the White Sox, Mike Clevinger pitched 6 scoreless innings, giving up 1 hit and 5 walks to go with 5 strikeouts.
"Kind of nitpicking a little, bit but overall, my stuff felt really good," Clevinger said. "A really good flow with Yaz (catcher Yasmani Grandal) back there."
Clevinger walked the first two batters he faced in the sixth inning, but a stellar catch by left fielder Andrew Benintendi helped bail him out and keep Baltimore off the board.
"Benintendi is insane out there," Clevinger said. "That's kind of been a constant every time I'm out there. I feel like there's always a couple plays that have saved my day, saved the team's day."
It's going to take more than a few defensive gems to get the Sox out of an early hole.
"I mean, I don't want to say we just beat ourselves, but it feels like almost every game we kind of beat ourselves," Clevinger said. "There's a silver lining. We could have a lot of wins right now. So it's just finding our identity, which we're in the process of, and figuring out how to mold those pieces together.
"It seems like one day one thing's doing well and something's off. It just takes a little time."
The bullpen was off Friday, as relievers Jake Diekman, Reynaldo Lopez and Jimmy Lambert combined to give up 6 runs in 2 innings.
"The offense is good and the pitching staff is good," Lopez said through a translator. "The bullpen, there's just a couple of things we need to fix. But overall, I think we are good. We have a good team."