After the first inning, White Sox starter Lucas Giolito was strong. Luis Robert Jr. continued his torrid May by homering in his third straight game and Jake Burger returned from the injured list with a two-run home run of his own.
But those are just details for a team that has a major hole to escape, one that got deeper with their 4-3 loss to the Astros on Sunday.
“We’re just obviously going to keep working hard,” Burger said. “I feel like we keep beating on the same drum but we have the talent in here. It’s just putting it together and getting results on the field now.”
The Sox have very little time to do that if they want to make anything of their 2023 season, which is already more than a quarter complete.
They once again fell to 14 games below .500 and missed a chance to take a series from the defending World Series champions, a group that doesn’t look the same as the 2022 juggernaut that won 106 games. Combined with the Twins’ rout of the Cubs, the loss to Houston knocked the Sox 9 1/2 games behind first-place Minnesota in the AL Central.
And thanks to Giolito’s rough first, the Sox spent most of the day behind. The Astros scored three times in the opening inning, getting a pair on a Yordan Alvarez double and then a third on Kyle Tucker’s sacrifice fly to right.
Giolito said the first was probably the worst he’s felt physically all year and that his stuff wasn’t crisp. He didn’t use that as an excuse.
“A huge part of a starting pitcher’s job is to set the tone early and keep momentum on our side. I failed to do that,” Giolito said. “Three-run first inning, just [expletive].”
Other than giving up Yainer Diaz’s fourth-inning home run, Giolito looked sharp the rest of the day. That first inning, though, was too much for the Sox to recover from.
“Really wanted to win this series and the reason we lost is because of my first inning there,” said Giolito, who went six innings. “Killed momentum for us. Handed it all over to the other side and then we had to play coming out of a hole. So obviously very frustrated with that. But now we move on, off-day and go win the next series.”
Robert did his best to help the Sox rally, homering in the fourth against Houston’s Hunter Brown. The drive was his sixth of May and 11th of the year.
Unfortunately for Robert and the Sox, his breakout will be in vain unless the team experiences a massive turnaround.
“Every day we go out, trying to be competitive,” Robert said through a translator. “Sometimes things go your way. Sometimes they don’t. But you can’t control that. What you can control is to go out there and be competitive. I’m sure that’s what I’m trying to do, and I’m pretty sure that’s what the rest of my teammates are trying to do too.”
Being competitive and trying hard won’t mean much for the Sox if they continue down this path. Sunday was another frustrating day in what has the potential to become one of the most frustrating seasons in franchise history, considering the amount of talent the team has and the years spent building a roster that was supposed to be a long-term contender.
“Gio, today, looked great. It was just some unfortunate hits that he gave up,” Burger said. “He looks great. Everybody looks great. It’s just… we’ve got to start getting results.”
