LOS ANGELES \u2014 Chicago White Sox starter Shane Smith was one out away from a perfect first inning against the Los Angeles Dodgers after retiring Shohei Ohtani and Freddie Freeman.<\/p>\n
But that third out was a challenge.<\/p>\n
Smith walked Will Smith and Max Muncy, then surrendered an RBI single to Teoscar Hern\u00e1ndez, an RBI double to Andy Pages and a two-run single to Michael Conforto.<\/p>\n
When the inning ended, the Sox found themselves facing a four-run deficit.<\/p>\n
\u201cGet two quick outs in the first and then walk two guys, that just kills you,\u201d Smith said. \u201cCan\u2019t take those back, but feel like after that, I executed. But things happen. I can\u2019t go back and redo it. Really tough. Didn\u2019t give my team a chance to win, and that just sucks for me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Two-out damage was too much to overcome for the Sox, who lost 6-1 in front of 51,368 on Tuesday at Dodger Stadium.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s kind of a double-edged sword,\u201d Smith said. \u201cYou get to positions to be successful, and then you don\u2019t make pitches.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Pages at-bat, I left a curveball with two strikes right over the middle of the plate. If it\u2019s executed, maybe it\u2019s a swing and miss, maybe not, but throwing it right down the middle with two guys on that you walked \u2014 you have to stop the bleeding somehow, and I wasn\u2019t able to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Smith allowed six runs on six hits with six strikeouts and three walks in 4 2\/3 innings.<\/p>\n
\u201cI felt really good coming into today,\u201d he said. \u201cBody in the right spot, mind in the right spot. You just have to bunker down in that first, especially. Didn\u2019t set the tone for the day, for the team. Didn\u2019t execute.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you give good teams the chance to beat you, they are going to do it. But if you do things the right way and execute and make two-strike pitches, things can go your way. So eliminate chances for other teams to exploit the bad pitches you make or those two-strike pitches you don\u2019t get to where you want. Eliminate those.\u201d<\/p>\n
All six runs he allowed came with two outs.<\/p>\n
\u201c(Smith) got off to a really good start,\u201d manager Will Venable said. \u201cWe knew going in that if we walked these guys that we were going to be in trouble. It manifested there in the first inning. He looked good. Outside of that, he pitched pretty well. Just got to find a way to get back on track there.\u201d<\/p>\n
After the four-run first, Smith had a perfect second that included striking out Ohtani and Freeman.<\/p>\n
He surrendered a leadoff single in the third to Will Smith, who advanced to second on a wild pitch and third on a grounder. Pages drove him home with a two-out single.<\/p>\n
The Sox scored in the fourth on an RBI double by Lenyn Sosa, but the Dodgers answered in the bottom of the inning with another two-out run.<\/p>\n
Smith struck out the first two batters of the fourth. He then went to a full count against Ohtani, who homered to right \u2014 his 30th of the season.<\/p>\n
Smith is looking to get back in a rhythm after allowing 16 earned runs in 11 innings over his last three outings.<\/p>\n
\u201cI felt like St. Louis (on June 17<\/a>) was a little different than Arizona (on June 23<\/a>),\u201d Smith said. \u201cSt. Louis I didn\u2019t really get mashed around the ballpark. Just kind of bad plays for me and walks (six runs, five earned in 4 1\/3 innings with two strikeouts and three walks). And Arizona I got hit around a little bit (five runs in two innings). Today, just the first inning kills you.<\/p>\n \u201cA lot to learn, and I\u2019m learning every day. Trying to continue to do that. At some point, you have to turn the ship around. I\u2019m just trying to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n The Sox couldn\u2019t get much going offensively against Yoshinobu Yamamoto and the Dodgers bullpen, finishing with just three hits. Sosa had two of them, a single in the second and the RBI double in the fourth. Andrew Benintendi singled and scored in the fourth.<\/p>\n Yamamoto allowed one run on three hits with eight strikeouts and one walk in seven innings.<\/p>\n \u201cYamamoto was really good,\u201d Venable said. \u201cJust good stuff. Beat us in about every way you could. Three hits spread out over nine innings isn\u2019t going to do it. Just got to find a way to string together some at-bats. But again, credit to Yamamoto, he pitched great.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LOS ANGELES \u2014 Chicago White Sox starter Shane Smith was one out away from a perfect first inning…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":32039,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5124],"tags":[960,1274,5386,1818,2502,20419,4712,13250],"class_list":{"0":"post-32038","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-chicago","8":"tag-chicago","9":"tag-chicago-white-sox","10":"tag-il","11":"tag-illinois","12":"tag-los-angeles-dodgers","13":"tag-shane-smith","14":"tag-shohei-ohtani","15":"tag-will-venable"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114782530841224804","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32038","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32038"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32038\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32039"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32038"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32038"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32038"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}