All the pope hats in the world couldn’t save the White Sox in a 5-4, 10-inning loss to the Reds on Tuesday.
There was no divine intervention for an offense that had one hit in its last 19 at-bats. And perhaps other forces were at work in the game-turning eighth inning, when luck didn’t go the Sox’ way.
However it happened, the Sox let a 4-0 lead get away, disappointing a sellout crowd of 38,113 that came out for a pope hat in honor of Pope Leo, a lifelong Sox fan.
Sean Burke was brilliant, bouncing back from a rough start in Boston with seven innings of one-run ball. Only Eugenio Suarez gave him a problem, hitting a solo homer in the fifth.
“He was awesome,” manager Will Venable said. “Feel like he one-ups himself every time he goes out there. Really good feel for the slider. Thought he got a ton of swing and miss on it. A good fastball again.”
The Sox appeared to have the game in hand with solo homers by Brenton Doyle, Edgar Quero and Miguel Vargas and an RBI double by Sam Antonacci against Reds lefty Nick Lodolo.
In the eighth, Venable turned to left-handed reliever Bryan Hudson, who was the victim of rotten luck: an infield single, a bloop single just beyond second baseman Antonacci’s reach and a bouncing ball that found a hole for a run. Venable then turned to righty Grant Taylor, who allowed the game-tying two-run single to Tyler Stephenson.
“That’s baseball,” Venable said. “Just weren’t able to stop the bleeding.”
Meanwhile, the Sox were practically silent at the plate in the last six innings. Only Munetaka Murakami reached base, on a double in the eighth.
“Lodolo was tough. Obviously, we were able to put some really good swings on him,” Venable said. “And then we just couldn’t get anything cooking after that.”
The Reds took the lead on Elly de la Cruz’s sacrifice fly. The Sox went down meekly in the 10th.
“I’d trade a bad performance for a win,” Burke said. “A one-run game, the mistake to Suarez will eat at me a little bit. I shook off [Quero] and went with a fastball. He put a good swing on it.”