TORONTO — The skids hit seven and 24, respectively, for the White Sox.
And now they’re just swerving out of control.
Where are the Sox (7-18) after losing 8-0 to the Blue Jays Wednesday afternoon, after striking out 17 times? They’ve lost seven straight games, six of them on a road trip against the Rays and Jays, two of the best teams in the American League.
The Sox haven’t scored in 24 straight innings and they’re getting worse by the hour. Eleven of their last 12 batters went down swinging or looking Wednesday.
“We’re in a funk,” catcher Seby Zavala said, stating the obvious. “And we have to come together as a team and figure out how to get out of it. Because this isn’t fun.”
The loss was the Sox’ 12th in the last 14 games and 15th in 19. The 7-18 start is the franchise’s worst since 1986.
With three hits in the first game of the series and four in each of the last two games, they left town for home with 11 series hits in tow, all but one a single.
And guess who’s waiting for them in Chicago. The best team in baseball, the Rays, for round 2.
“There’s no other way to say it. We have to find a way to start winning and we can’t curl up in a ball,” Zavala said, who struck out twice and walked. “If you curl up in a ball then you leave our locker room. I don’t think we have any of those guys. But if anybody does feel that way, it’s going to definitely bring us down.”
Right-hander Michael Kopech (0-3, 7.01 ERA) was down after allowing four runs on six hits and two walks in five innings. He faced the minimum through the first eight batters but Santiago Espinal’s two-out single started a three run rally in the third. Bo Bichett’s single and Vladimir Guerrero Jr.’s double plated three three runs.
“Those [bleepers], they just foul off a lot of [bleep] and it puts us in a hole,” a frustrated Zavala said, “and maybe makes us feel like we don’t know how to get them out or something. I don’t really know.”
Bichette homered against Jimmy Lambert in the seventh, and Whit Merrifield singled in two runs. Not that the Jays needed it against a team that hasn’t scored since Andrew Vaughn doubled home two runs in the third inning of Monday’s series opener, a 5-2 loss, and got shut out in consecutive games for the first time since 2017.
The Sox set another futile offensive tone when lefty Yusei Kikuchi (4-0, 3.00) struck out Elvis Andrus and Andrew Vaughn to start the game. Luis Robert Jr., in a 3-for-44 slump going in, lined one off the right field wall but was tagged out at second when he overslid the base.
Jimenez (.172 average) and Robert (.218) each struck out three times, once each in the ninth against Trevor Richards, who also fanned Vaughn.
“It’s frustrating,” manager Pedro Grifol said. “It’s something we talked about [in hitters meetings] today. We’ve got to clean it up, we’ve got to be tougher outs.”
NOTES: After exiting Tuesday’s 7-0 loss with a back spasm, catcher Yasmani Grandal was available off the bench Wednesday, Grifol said.
*Benintendi (.295 average) has hit safely in 12 of his last 13 games. He was the only Sox in the lineup with an average above .236.
