HOUSTON — The White Sox were nicely positioned for a 2-0 start.
Against a team that received its World Series rings before the game.
At their ballpark.
How big would that have been for a team aiming to erase the stench of 2022 and facing a rough April schedule starting with four games in Houston against the Astros.
“I’d take 2-0 against anybody,” Sox reliever Kendall Graveman said after the Astros rallied against him and left-hander Jake Diekman for a 6-3 win Friday at Minute Maid Park.
With a 3-0 lead and Lance Lynn on the mound, a 2-0 start was there for the taking. Lynn was one pitch away from following Dylan Cease’s Opening Day masterpiece and getting through six innings of scoreless, one-hit ball, but former Sox Jose Abreu lined a single in front of center fielder Luis Robert and Kyle Tucker homered to center, cutting the Sox’ advantage to 3-2.
In the seventh, a three-run double by slugger Yordan Alvarez against Diekman put the Astros in front 5-3. Graveman, pitching for the second straight night, set things up for Alvarez when he sandwiched walks to free-swinging Martin Maldonado and Alex Bregman around a parachute single by Jeremy Pena that Gold Glove left fielder Andrew Benintendi didn’t appear to read well.
“Shouldn’t put Diek in that situation,” said Graveman, a former Astro. “You can’t walk Maldy there. That’s the game. Gotta be better than that. That game’s on me, solely.”
Lynn begged to differ, taking responsibility of his own.
“I walked too many guys and then gave up the homer in the sixth,” he said. “It’s on me. I have to get through that inning. If I get through that inning, we’ve got a chance to win. Put the bullpen in a bad spot.”
Alvarez was 3-for-7 lifetime against Diekman, but with lefty Aaron Bummer not available after pitching in the opener, manager Pedro Grifol went to his other lefty reliever. Diekman grooved a belt-high sinker to Alvarez.
“Yeah, I thought that was the right move to bring him in there,” Grifol said. “Alvarez is just a good hitter. He left a fastball out over the plate a little bit, and he made a good swing on it. I liked the matchup, for sure.”
Alvarez banged one beyond Benintendi’s reach near the left-center-field wall, improving to 4-for-8 against Diekman.
David Hensley’s RBI single against Jose Ruiz in the eighth gave the Astros a 6-3 lead.
Lynn was given a 3-0 lead to work with on Eloy Jimenez’s RBI double in the first against Cristian Javier and doubles on consecutive pitches in the sixth by Benintendi, Jimenez and Yoan Moncada. Moncada went 3-for-4 and delivered the knockout blow to the Astros’ starter.
Lynn walked four but kept the Astros in check through the first five innings. He struck out six and allowed just three hits.
“When you don’t go six innings, you didn’t do your job as a starter,” Lynn said. “So I didn’t do my job tonight, and it cost us the game.”
It was a solid start nonetheless after Cease became the fourth pitcher in American League history with no walks and 10-plus strikeouts on Opening Day, joining Hall of Famers Walter Johnson (1916) and Mike Mussina (1998), and Jered Weaver (2012).
“To go toe-to-toe with them and put that much pressure on them and then to ultimately walk out with the win, we couldn’t ask for a better start to a season,” Cease said Thursday.
A win Friday guaranteeing a season-opening four-game split with the potential for more would have been doubly sweet for the Sox.
But that got soured by the bullpen.
“We’re 1-1,” Lynn said. “That’s it. It’s two games in. Everybody is playing hard, and that’s all you ask.”
