The White Sox matched a 61-year-old franchise record with seven home runs Saturday against the Blue Jays.
They also became just the third team in Major League history to hit seven home runs and lose.
On a hot, 86-degree day with the wind blowing out at 10 mph, the Sox blasted four homers off starter R.A. Dickey and three more against three different relievers in a 10-8 loss to Toronto.
Hitting seven home runs and losing had been achieved just twice before and both times by the Tigers (in 1995 and 2004).
The Sox last hit seven homers in a game on April 23, 1955 at Kansas City.
Every home run Saturday came with no runners on.
“You were hoping there’d be a couple guys on,” Ventura said. “I figured hopefully we could get some guys on there in the ninth and get one up in the wind and see what happens. I’m just glad the guys keep battling back offensively. That’s a good sign.”
Brett Lawrie hit two homers, including an inside-the-park home run, and became the first Sox player since Ron Santo in 1974 to hit a homer and an inside-the-park homer in the same game.
Dioner Navarro, J.B. Shuck, Tim Anderson, Alex Avila and Adam Eaton all got in on the action, too.
“That’s the way baseball goes,” Eaton said. “Baseball is a weird game.”
Lawrie, Navarro and Shuck went back-to-back-to-back in the second inning, the most consecutive homers by the Sox since hitting four in a row against Kansas City in 2008.
Shuck’s homer was his first as a member of the White Sox.
The Sox never led after starting pitcher Miguel Gonzalez surrendered three runs in the first inning. He gave up five straight hits, including three straight doubles.
“We hit seven home runs and we didn’t win the ballgame,” said Gonzalez, who allowed eight earned runs on 10 hits in 5 1/3 innings. “That just can’t be happening.”
Gavin Floyd exits with injury: Blue Jays reliever and former White Sox starter Gavin Floyd exited Saturday’s game in the bottom of the sixth inning with right shoulder tightness.
Trainers came out to check on Floyd, who had a 2-0 count on Shuck, and promptly took him out of the game with nobody warming in the pen.
“He felt some shoulder tightness in his right shoulder, so we took him out and he’ll get some more tests,” Jays manager John Gibbons said. “I don’t think we can afford to wait very long, that’s for sure. It could be something.”
Floyd played seven seasons with the Sox from 2007-13. He tore the ulnar collateral ligament in his right elbow and suffered a torn flexor muscle in his arm during his final season with the Sox.
With the Braves in 2014, Floyd had season-ending surgery to repair a fractured olecranon, the curvy end of the ulna bone at the tip of his elbow. He suffered the same injury last year with Cleveland.
Floyd has appeared in 28 games for the Blue Jays this season, posting a 4.06 ERA in 31 innings.
