The Chicago White Sox continue to show that poor decision-making and mental errors are a staple of this team and have been for far too long.
After playing the Baltimore Orioles to a 1-1 tie through six innings, the White Sox found another way to depress their fan base by giving up eight runs in the last two innings before losing by a final of 9-3.
The loss drops the White Sox record to an abysmal 52-80.
In yet another head-scratching move, manager Pedro Grifol pulled reliever Tanner Banks in the seventh inning of a tie game despite his having retired the three batters he faced.
The Chicago White Sox lost to the Baltimore Orioles on Tuesday night.
Banks was throwing well in relief of starter Jesse Scholtens who went five and a third innings giving up just one run. Banks got ahead of each hitter with first-pitch strikes, closing with 12 of his 19 pitches finding the strike zone.
Despite Banks' tossing a clean outing, Grifol opted to pull him with one out in the seventh for Aaron Bummer who faced Orioles third baseman Ramon Urias.
Banks and Bummer are both lefties and Urias is a right-handed hitter, so there was no lefty-lefty matchup in play. In addition, Urias hadn't faced either pitcher in his career.
The problem with the move isn't only the fact Bummer gave up three runs (he did get Urias out), but that Grifol didn't give a different pitcher a chance to show more of what he can do in a season that ended a long time ago.
Grifol played the averages as right-handed hitters are batting only .221 off him compared to .311 against Banks.
No one wants to lose, but with the White Sox so far out of the playoff picture, playing young guys to see what they got should be job one at this point.
Extending Banks a couple of more batters would not have been a bad thing. The team knows what it has in Bummer but might still want to see what Banks can do with more work.
Then, there is the fundamentals, or lack thereof.
Down 9-1 going into the 9th inning, the White Sox started to put a few runs on the board and got to 9-3 with runners on the corner and one out. While they may not have been able to erase the who deficit, they could have at least gone down without having a brain cramp in running the bases.
Lenyn Sosa was on first base when Korey Lee hit a looping ball into center field. Cedric Mullins came in to make the grab and managed to double up Sosa who, for whatever reason, decided to take off toward second instead of holding up and returning to first base.
It was a little league mistake on the part of Sosa, yet this is the type of thing that happens way too much to this club. Correcting these problems has been an issue with player development and needs to be addressed by whoever takes over in the front office.
Adding insult to injury, the White Sox have given up 18 runs in the first two games of the series against the Orioles.