Mike Vasil entered Wednesday’s game with the Chicago White Sox already down four runs to the Detroit Tigers.
Tasked with trying to keep the contest within striking distance, the right-hander pitched 3 2/3 scoreless innings while the Sox chipped away.
The Sox eventually pulled even. But Wenceel Pérez began the eighth inning with a hustle double and later scored on a Colt Keith bloop double as the Tigers defeated the Sox 5-4 in front of 12,381 at Rate Field.
“These guys have continued to fight, every single game,” manager Will Venable said. “It was a good job to go down early there four runs and then get right back to it, especially after a couple of zeros offensively. To continue to grind was great.
“Happy these guys were able to push some runs across and continue to battle. Just got to find a way to get a couple more.”
After a 1-hour, 35-minute rain delay, the Sox (19-43) quickly found themselves in a deep hole against the team with the best record in baseball. The first four batters reached and scored for the Tigers (41-22) against starter Jared Shuster. Riley Greene drove in two with a single while Dillon Dingler and Javier Báez had RBI hits in the inning.
Vasil took over in the second and stabilized the situation.
“Just a really good attacking the zone,” Venable said. “He controlled the count leverage the whole time, did a really nice job.”
The 3 2/3 innings are a career high for Vasil.
“I’ve pitched three a number of times (and) I started my whole life,” Vasil said. “So I think the fourth up is always kind of like that bridge inning, even in spring training when you are building up. I really would have loved to finish that fourth and maybe even gone a fifth. But I think for me, being able to get as many outs as possible was the goal going into tonight.”
Vasil allowed two hits and struck out three.
“I actually didn’t get ahead that well,” he said. “But I think just executing pitches when it mattered most. Mixing up the four-seam with the sinker, using the sweeper effectively, mixing speeds, sometimes having to pitch up and in, varying looks and everything.
“It’s a really good team we are facing and obviously they can score some runs so being able to change speeds and execute pitches.”
Vasil found out Tuesday evening that he would be called on for the bulk role of the scheduled bullpen game.
“I didn’t know how many that needed to be or what it was,” Vasil said. “In my mind, I told our pitching coach (Ethan Katz) ‘I’ll go five if you need me to.’ Realistically I knew that could be three, could be four, could be whatever. But preparing for that is just like any other day, same stuff, same routine and get ready for the day.”
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As he got into a rhythm, so did the Sox offense.
The Sox cut the Tigers’ lead in half in the third. Mike Tauchman had a two-out RBI double and then scored on the second of three singles by Chase Meidroth.
Andrew Benintendi doubled and scored on a sacrifice fly by Josh Rojas in the fourth. Benintendi collected an RBI on a sacrifice fly in the fifth as Korey Lee scored to make it 4-all.
It remained that way until the eighth. Pérez tried to stretch a single into a double on a ball hit to left-center. Center fielder Michael A. Taylor made a strong throw to second and Rojas applied the tag. Pérez was initially ruled out, but the call was reversed following a video review.
With one out, Keith hit a blooper near the left-field line. Benintendi made a sliding attempt, but the ball landed for a run-scoring double.
“The play with Michael, he made a great play, (Pérez) snuck right in there obviously after the review,” Venable said. “That ball down the line on (Benintendi), just beat him to the spot there.”
That was just enough as the Sox fell to 3-16 in one-run games.