PHILADELPHIA — More doom, more gloom.
And one more shutout.
No. 7, to be precise, the most of any team in baseball history through 19 games.
Nothing is going right for the White Sox, who lost 7-0 to the Phillies on Friday, falling to 3-16.
One of the few good things about this loss-after-loss-after-loss, shutout-after-shutout start to the Sox’ season has been Garrett Crochet, the 24-year-old Opening Day left-hander who dazzled through the first three starts of his career.
But even Crochet’s refreshingly good — and much-needed — moments for this struggling crew have their limits. In the latest Sox defeat, the Phillies’ Alec Bohm hit one three-run homer to right field against Crochet and another to left in his first two at-bats, and Whit Merrifield added a solo shot to pin seven runs on the lefty’s ERA, which now reads 5.61.
Crochet pitched three-plus innings and was pulled by manager Pedro Grifol after Merrifield’s poke, trailing 7-0.
This start follows Crochet’s allowing five runs while striking out 10 in 4 2/3 innings against the Reds on Saturday.
“I kind of chalk up the entire day as not controlling the count, similar to last week,” said Crochet, who threw 75 pitches, walking two and allowing five hits.
“Falling behind early and kind of fighting for everything. I didn’t feel like any of my mistakes got punished, but it’s kind of the fact they were making me throw more pitches than I needed to. It was kind of only a matter of time at that point.”
As it turned out, Crochet might have needed no-hit stuff to beat the Phillies. That’s what Spencer Turnbull had, blanking the Sox without a hit until Gavin Sheets singled with one out in the seventh. The Sox finished with two hits.
Averaging exactly two runs per game, the worst in the majors, they have run out of things to say about the offense.
“You’ve just got to trust each other,” Sheets said. “You’ve got to trust the guy behind you, feed off each other. We’re going through it as a team. One guy can’t lead the whole thing. Can’t put too much pressure on yourself.”
“We had a good meeting today on Turnbull, had a good game plan,” Grifol said. “You have to execute.”
And they face Zach Wheeler and Aaron Nola in the last two games of the series.
Until Friday, it had been a good week for the Sox’ up-and-coming starting pitchers, with Nick Nastrini and Jonathan Cannon shining in back-to-back debuts. Nastrini gets his second start Sunday against the Phillies, and Cannon gets his Monday at the Twins.
How many more starts for Nastrini and Cannon remains to be seen.
“We’re going to stay on point for one or two times around to see what we got,” Grifol said. “There’s a lot of moving parts to it. We have a lot of uncharted water here, a couple young kids doing it for the first time. Crochet doing it for the first time. We’ll keep it up for now and see what happens.”
Mike Clevinger and Brad Keller could be a week or so away from joining the staff, so the burden of carrying the rotation won’t rest solely on the young guns.
Both homers by Bohm were on pitches out of the strike zone. And Crochet might have avoided Bohm the first time with a little help from his infield.
Trea Turner legged out an infield single in the first — third baseman Braden Shewmake had a minor hitch in the transfer and might have been playing a step or so too deep, as well — and Crochet walked Harper before Bohm’s opposite-field homer.
“Ranging to my left, it was more getting my body turned and getting something more on the throw,” Shewmake said. “Guys like that who can fly turn those into hits. He put it in a spot that’s tough for us to get to.
“We’re playing a little back. You can’t play too far in or you turn anything hit one step to your left or right into a double. There’s some give and take there.”
