White Sox right-hander Michael Soroka was aggressive in the zone Sunday, but two mistakes in the fourth inning cost him.
After Guardians second baseman Andres Gimenez fouled a ball off his leg, he connected on Soroka’s changeup for his second home run of the season.
Soroka has allowed at least a homer in eight of his nine starts.
“The last thing a hitter wants to see after they foul one off their knee is a fastball inside,” Soroka said. “Threw a changeup right over the plate, and his bat ran into it, so that has to change. Have to make better decisions in the moment.”
His propensity for allowing homers bit him again in the inning when Guardians catcher David Fry hit a two-run shot to break the game open.
Other than those pitches to Gimenez and Fry, it was a clean outing for Soroka.
Two errors in the sixth inning — and a passed ball by catcher Korey Lee — also hurt the Sox (12-29), who lost 7-0 and could not pull off a four-game sweep against the Guardians (25-16). Their four-game winning streak was snapped.
Soroka could’ve pitched more given his low pitch count.
“I’m not a pitch-count guy,” manager Pedro Grifol said. “I’m about winning the baseball game. If it’s 70 pitches, it’s 70 pitches. If it’s 90, it’s 90. This is a team game, and I know pitchers are on the mound, and they wait five days to do it. I thought the matchup between [Tim] Hill and [Josh] Naylor [in the sixth inning] and us still having an opportunity to be in that ballgame was the best matchup.”
After some subpar outings in which he put his bullpen in a bad spot with short starts, Soroka is starting to feel more like the pitcher the Sox envisioned during spring training. His four-seam fastball sat at 93.3 mph, almost a full tick above his average for the year.
In addition to the velocity, Soroka commanded his pitches fairly well. He said he threw the way he wanted to
Soroka went 5⅓ innings and allowed five runs (four earned), four hits and one walk.
After walking third baseman Jose Ramirez, Soroka was replaced by Hill despite having thrown only 71 pitches, 50 for strikes. Grifol wanted to give Naylor a different look with Hill, but the move backfired after the left-hander allowed two unearned runs and two walks.
“With us having a couple of opportunities before that inning, I thought we were still in the game,” Grifol said. “And Naylor had some good swings off of [Soroka].
‘‘If he wouldn’t have walked Ramirez, I probably would have left him in. But once we got Ramirez on, I’m going to just make Naylor’s at-bat a little bit more uncomfortable with Hill.”
The five runs were the most Soroka has allowed since April 20. He stuck to what has worked for him in his three previous starts: punching the strike zone. The competitor in Soroka wanted to stay on the mound, especially after watching the starting pitchers play a big role in the Sox’ winning ways of late.
Lee said it was a “good stepping stone into [Soroka’s] next start.’’
“Today stings the most because you see your numbers,’’ Soroka said, ‘‘you see what you’re doing, and you want to give the team a chance to understand that I’m in there deep with low pitch counts and runs every time out.’’
