You have to go back a while to find a worse start to a Chicago White Sox season.
Like in 1986.
The Sox dropped their sixth straight game on Tuesday, getting shut out by the Toronto Blue Jays 7-0 in front of 28,917 at the Rogers Centre.
The Sox are 10 games under .500. At 7-17, they matched their start in 1986.
“It hurts to lose a major league game,” manager Pedro Grifol said. “It hurts to lose six in a row. It hurts. There is a lot of care here. People care about winning.
“It just needs work. We have to keep working. We can’t let this thing break us and it won’t.”
The loss guaranteed that the Sox would not win the series. They are 0-7-1 in the series this season.
Tuesday’s game started to unravel in the second. Sox starter Mike Clevinger walked the first two batters. With one out, Danny Jansen hit a three-run homer.
“I got excited after the first half, I felt like I was back to where I was before Tommy John,” Clevinger said. “And I think I let that emotion get the best of me (in the second). I went out there and got behind in the count and started tipping balls over, and when I tried to come back, it was kind of too late.”
A leadoff walk led to the first of three more runs in the fourth.
“The walks will kill you, man,” Grifol said. “We just have to attack the attacking zone with the things we have. We have good things. We have good pitchers and we just have to do a really good job of attacking the strike zone and letting it fall where it falls. It’s mano-a-mano, attack the strike zone and see what happens.”
Clevinger allowed six runs on seven hits with three strikeouts and three walks over five innings.
Jansen hit a solo homer off reliever Tanner Banks in the sixth. He was also behind the plate as José Berríos and two relievers combined for the shutout.
“We just didn’t get any pitches to hit, and if we did, we didn’t do anything with them,” Grifol said. “From my point of view, (Berríos) mixed pretty well. On the pitches I hit, I either fouled them out or grounded them out. We didn’t share them like we’re capable of.”
Berríos allowed four hits, struck out nine and walked one in seven innings.
“He pitched pretty well,” said Sox left fielder Andrew Benintendi, who was 1 for 4. “He had good stuff for sure.”
After being held to three hits Sunday against the Tampa Bay Rays and again in Monday’s series opener against the Blue Jays, the Sox mustered just four Tuesday — all singles.
“(Berríos) had a pretty good fastball,” Grifol said. “In his changeup, he threw a righty, which was a pretty good pitch for him. Normally, it is fast-slider. He mixed in his shift against righties (Tuesday), which was a very good pitch.
“I don’t think I watched that much (Tuesday). It’s just one of those days where we had good pitches to hit and we just couldn’t get them going.”
The Sox finished the game without catcher Yasmani Grandal, who exited at bat in the seventh inning with what Grifol said “looks like a little bit of (back) spasm.
“It’s going to be day by day,” Grifol said. “Right now we think he’ll be fine, but we’ll see how he goes in (Wednesday).”
The Sox were shut out for the second time this season. They have lost eight of nine and 11 of 13.
“I’ve got to keep working,” Benintendi said. “We are going through a tough part of the schedule. Things don’t go our way, we don’t execute, a lot of things don’t go our way, but it’s a long season. We can turn it around.”
Benintendi said mindset is important.
“Once you start getting negative, you might as well go home,” he said. “If you’re negative, you’re not going to win games. I have to look forward to you doing everything you can to help the team win.”
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