South Siders' loss in extras 'hurts a little bit'

CHICAGO -- White Sox manager Rick Renteria seemed to approve of pretty much everything but the final score of his team’s return to Sunday Night Baseball on ESPN for the first time since May 12, 2013.

“It was a really good ballgame, but we wanted to be on the right side of it,” said Renteria of the White Sox 5-4 loss to the Indians in 10 innings at Guaranteed Rate Field. “This one hurts a little bit. They all hurt, but this one hurts a little bit because these guys really battled today.”

• Box score

This contest marked the end of a five-game homestand for the White Sox, but it also featured two of the game’s best young starters in Lucas Giolito for the host squad and the Tribe’s Shane Bieber. Both lived up to expectations, but neither factored in the final outcome.

That final outcome falls under the strange category. The White Sox experienced Major League Baseball’s new extra-innings rule for the first time, with José Ramírez starting on second in the top of the 10. Cleveland took the lead on Delino DeShields’ safety squeeze bunt and added an extra run on Mike Freeman’s single off reliever Jimmy Cordero, before Brad Hand and Oliver Pérez held off the White Sox in the bottom half of the inning.

With Nomar Mazara the automatic runner at second for the White Sox, Hand got Luis Robert on a long flyout before yielding a run-scoring single to James McCann, who also homered off Bieber among his three hits. After a four-pitch walk to Danny Mendick, a rain delay was called that lasted 46 minutes. Pérez took over when play resumed and induced a Leury García first-pitch popup and struck out Yoán Moncada to end the game.

“You see the weird extra innings thing come into effect there,” Giolito said. “And then a weird rain delay. It was a very strange last inning for sure, to say the least. It's unfortunate we didn't come out on top."

Giolito struck out nine over a season-high seven innings, while walking five and yielding four hits. After surrendering a 1-0 lead via two runs in the third, Giolito walked Carlos Santana and Domingo Santana in the fourth. But he struck out Freeman and Sandy León on seven total pitches, screaming into his glove as he exited the mound.

During that frame, Giolito started to incorporate his slider more with the four-seam fastball/changeup mix. He finished with 19 sliders thrown, per Statcast, and 16 swings and misses overall. Cleveland managed only two batters reaching base the rest of the way -- both in the fifth, when Giolito retired Carlos Santana on a sharply hit grounder to second baseman Danny Mendick to end the frame.

“Looking back, I would've liked to mix in the slider earlier, maybe just from the beginning of the game because I had a good feel for it, but you live and you learn,” Giolito said. “They were definitely making adjustments to try to sit on the changeup a good amount there. It kind of hurt me in the third inning when I gave up those runs, but McCann was able to see it, make the adjustment and then we started mixing more."

Bieber struck out eight, but he also allowed José Abreu’s 182nd career home run and Yasmani Grandal’s go-ahead double scoring Moncada during a two-run sixth. That lead would not hold up, as the White Sox dropped to 2-6 at home and 8-8 overall in a rain-soaked wild finish within the American League Central.

“To not be able to come out on top to finish out the homestand, it does hurt.” McCann said. “With that being said, we head to Detroit and we have to move on. We have to find a way to go win some games in Detroit.”

Giolito agreed.

"Losses like this are tough, but all we can do is learn from it and take care of business on this next road trip,” Giolito said. “When our offense, pitching and defense come together, we can beat anybody. We've seen that this year against the Twins and the Indians. We've just got to try to get everything in sync more often."