Frustration builds for White Sox ace Chris Sale

DETROIT – Frustration is beginning to surface for Chris Sale, staff ace and team leader.

“How can you not be frustrated?’’ Sale said after allowing four runs over 6 1’3 innings in another White Sox loss, a 7-4 decision to the Detroit Tigers and previously winless right-hander Mike Pelfrey (1-5). “We are not winning. We are not playing well. We are losing.’’

Yes they are. The Sox are even losing in games that supposedly match up well for them. They lost for the fifth straight time when Sale or Jose Quintana, their other All-Star candidate, start.

Sale’s answers about his performance, not his best with a season-low two strikeouts and after the Tigers got him for a run in the first and two more in the sixth on J.D. Martinez’s two-run homer.

“I was fine. Just a little erratic with my command. Just not good enough,’’ he said.

Sale (9-2) usually takes it all on himself, even when he doesn’t deserve that. But he knows everyone in the Sox clubhouse needs to be better. This was their 17^th loss in 23 games since that 23-10 start.

“You can’t really pinpoint,’’ Sale said. “I don’t know what it is, or how we do it. We better find it.

“We need to start doing something. Just playing better all around. We need more. We have to stop losing games. It’s plain and simple. You come in every day, you play. You either win or lose, there’s no middle ground, and we need to start being a little bit more in the left column.’’

Todd Frazier got caught in a rundown between first and second, helping Pelfrey escape with a one-run inning after the first three Sox singled. Matt Albers misplayed a squeeze bunt into an error, and the Sox mustered only two hits against Pelfey after the first.

“You can’t win the game getting two runs in eight innings and fighting back every time,’’ Frazier said. “As hitters we have to have that step on your throat mentality after you get up 2-1. Nobody’s going to win getting two runs.’’

The Sox will try to salvage a win on Sunday’s series finale with Quintana facing Justin Verlander. Two straight wins against the Mets, including the Albers game, seemed to provide a boost but they regressed again getting pounded 10-3 on Friday, then losing with Sale.

“We are putting in the work,’’ Sale said. “We have the effort. We have the team. Everything is in line. We just have to find a way to win. Whatever it is, where it’s going to come from, but we got to go. We have to go.’’

NOTE: Adam Eaton snapped an 0-for-15 skid with a triple, two-run double and single.

*Cubs manager Joe Maddon on James Shields, whom Maddon managed in Tampa Bay. ‘Purely competitively speaking, he just never wants to come out of a game. He thinks he can beat anybody.”

Contributing: David Just