SEATTLE -- If there’s a way to lose 10 of 12 games and still not feel as if all hope is lost, the White Sox may have discovered it.
Under manager Rick Renteria’s watch, the White Sox have developed a battle-to-the-final-out mentality that has at the least made their games more interesting.
But after they fell again on Thursday night, a 5-4 walkoff loss to the Seattle Mariners at Safeco Field, Renteria said he would like to start converting on some of these missed opportunities. Despite homering three times late to rally from four runs down, the White Sox lost their fourth straight contest and fell to 17-22. Guillermo Heredia’s pinch-hit, two-out single off reliever Dan Jennings did the White Sox in as Jarrod Dyson scored the winning run.
“They don't quit,” Renteria said. “The one thing you want to make sure to do when you're having games like this is ultimately try to finish it out. That puts the icing on the cake and I think that when they continue to battle and fight, that speaks to the character of those guys and how they go about their business.
“They've been doing it all year."
The White Sox looked out of it early on yet again.
They had no solution for Mariners rookie starter Sam Gaviglio, who allowed three hits and walked one in five scoreless innings. But once they got into the struggling Seattle bullpen the White Sox offense -- who stranded four in scoring position through six innings -- finally woke up.
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Matt Davidson blasted a two-run homer off Seattle’s Casey Lawrence in the seventh inning to get the White Sox within 4-2. An inning later, the White Sox roared back with two outs against reliever Dan Altavilla.
Todd Frazier made it a one-run game with a 382-foot shot to left. Tim Anderson followed Frazier’s drive with an opposite-field homer to tie it at 4. Anderson, who finished 3-for-4 and scored two runs, was fired up as he raced around the bases.
“It’s definitely good for me to tie the game up there and give us a shot at it,” Anderson said. “We’re feeling real good. It’s definitely something we can build off of. The fight is there. We’ve just got to keep battling and competing and giving ourselves a shot to win.”
Ultimately, the White Sox didn’t emerge victorious.
Dyson reached on a fielder’s choice after Taylor Motter’s leadoff single in the ninth. He just beat Frazier’s throw to second on Carlos Ruiz’s groundout, a play that proved critical. With two outs, Jennings intentionally walked Jean Segura. Seattle opted for Heredia over Ben Gamel and he delivered.
Frazier admits it sounds strange to look at the positive side of things when the team has gone from 15-12 to five games under .500. But the White Sox expect if they continue to fight back, eventually they’ll reverse their fortunes.
“Out of those 10 I bet we were in 70 percent of them,” Frazier said. “We came back, what were we down, 4-0? Late innings, a couple of big home runs, and we kept battling. That’s what Rick always talks about. Keep battling and eventually good things are going to happen. It was just unfortunate. Danny threw a good pitch, the guy hit a blooper. In this game, sometimes you don’t need a good swing. You’ve seen that from me. Sometimes it happens, and that’s baseball.
"They came back and beat us.”
Dylan Covey felt like he hurt his own cause with a fifth-inning walk of Ruiz. Renteria said Covey’s outing -- he allowed four earned and five hits in six innings -- was the rookie’s best to date.
But Covey couldn’t escape a trouble spot in the fifth inning. Dyson, who homered in the third inning, singled with two outs and stole two bases in the fifth inning. Covey then walked Ruiz a second time, which set up Segura’s three-run homer to put Seattle up 4-0.
“That was something me and Coop talked about: Didn’t want to walk (Ruiz) to get to Segura,” Covey said. “Tried throwing a fastball 3-2 and spiked it. If I could have an at-bat back, that would be it, just go right after him. But I felt decent overall.”