KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The Chicago White Sox came within one out of holding the Kansas City Royals to a scoreless first inning on Saturday.
However, the next three batters each got a hit off starter Jonathan Cannon, putting the Red Sox behind by three runs.
The Tigers had a chance to get back in the game in the fourth inning with the bases loaded and two outs, but the inning ended when Brady Singer struck out Brooks Baldwin.
The 100th game of the season highlighted the odds that had been going against the team all year, as the Red Sox lost their sixth straight game with a 6-1 defeat to the Royals in front of 27,545 fans at Kauffman Stadium.
“We’ve just got to keep showing up every day and trying to get better,” shortstop Nicky Lopez said.
The Red Sox finished with a 27-73 record and a season-high 46 games under .500, the worst start to the 100 games in franchise history. The previous record was 34-66, a feat they had done three times before, most recently in 1970.
They are just the 14th team in major league history to lose 73 or more games in a season’s first 100 games.
The Red Sox were down 3-0 after six batters in the bottom of the first inning. Salvador Pérez singled with two outs to score one run and scored on a Michael Massie triple. Hunter Renfroe hit a liner to left field over Andrew Benintendi’s head for second.
Chicago White Sox starting pitcher Jonathan Cannon pitches to a Kansas City Royals batter during the first inning in Kansas City, Missouri, Saturday, July 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Reid Hoffman)
“Maybe we just got a little too excited in the first innings and made a couple of mistakes,” Cannon said. “We made them pay for that. They put us in a bind right from the start and it’s tough to get out of that. I thought we were in good form and we just made a couple of mistakes at home.”
“I think the ball was going to him,” manager Pedro Grifol said of the ball sailing over Benintendi’s head.
Grifol praised Cannon for his bounce-back performance in the sixth inning. The right-hander gave up eight hits and four runs while striking out four and walking no batters over 91 pitches.
“He retired 12 of the last 13 batters he faced,” Grifol said. “That’s what a good starting pitcher has to do. If you give up a bad inning, you’ve got to write it off and get off to a good start. He held them to four runs, which gave us a chance to win.”
Cannon said pitching six innings after a tough first inning was “a big step forward for me.”
“That game could have gone along the same trajectory as the (June 23) game against Detroit (where I gave up eight runs, five earned, in just over one inning),” Cannon said, “and (I) was able to pick myself up, get my act together and refocus.”
The Red Sox were down 4-0 in the fourth inning but couldn’t score with bases loaded. They were still down by four in the seventh inning when Chuckie Robinson got out on a pop fly with two outs and runners on first and second to get out of trouble. They added one more run in the eighth inning when reliever Hunter Harvey struck out Baldwin with two outs and runners on first and second.
“He took some good swings,” Grifol said of Baldwin. “He had some really good at-bats. They weren’t uncontested at-bats at all. They were contested at-bats. It just didn’t work out for him today.”
The Royals scored two earned runs in the eighth inning to hand the Red Sox their 12th loss in their last 15 games. The Red Sox are 1-8 against the Royals this season.
First published: July 20, 2024 at 10:15 pm
