DETROIT -- Jordan Zimmermann hadn’t walked four batters in a game in two years.

He hadn’t yielded a bases-loaded walk in eight years.

He hadn’t worn long sleeves for a start ever.

“I was tired of being cold out there,” the Wisconsin native said of the last part.

It was a strange-looking outing for Zimmermann on Friday night, even if the result looked familiar for his recent struggles. Though Zimmermann took his third consecutive loss in the Tigers’ 7-3 defeat to the White Sox, he did so in uncharacteristic fashion.

After the free-swinging Twins made Zimmermann pay for pounding the strike zone last weekend in Minnesota, he was expecting the same aggressiveness from the similarly young White Sox hitters. So Zimmermann adjusted his approach, tried to paint the corners and hoped to induce the swinging Sox to chase. They didn’t, and plate umpire Todd Tichenor didn’t give him much leeway.

“I can't live over the middle of the plate or I'll be gone in the first inning,” Zimmermann said. “So I have to live on the corners. There were a lot of questionable calls tonight. He thought they were balls and I thought they were strikes.”

He was almost gone at the end of the fifth. As he walked off the field at inning’s end, having given up the go-ahead run on a bases-loaded walk, he gestured to Tichenor that his strike zone was tight on the sides. Tichenor, who had just ejected manager Ron Gardenhire, took a step towards Zimmermann and offered to do the same for him.

“I said, 'You have to give me the outside corner or the inside corner. It's gotta be one or the other, or else I'm not going to be in this game long,'” Zimmermann said. “And he got really defensive and took a step at me and said, 'Do you wanna go, too?' And I said, 'No, not really.' So I just walked off.”

By that point, Zimmermann was leaning on his curveball, the third pitch in his arsenal. The slider Zimmermann leaned on early in the season wasn’t great for a third straight outing, evidenced by the 458-foot home run Yoan Moncada hit into the wind and off the ivy hanging over the center field fountain. The fastball drew nine called strikes but no swings and misses, averaging 91 mph on a night with a first-pitch temperature of just 40 degrees.

Those chilly conditions proved conducive for young White Sox lefty Carlos Rodon (3-2), who tossed six innings of one-run ball with six strikeouts. They’ve been less hospitable for Zimmermann (0-3) in his last three starts, leading Zimmermann to finally don long sleeves.

With the bases loaded in a 1-1 game in the fifth, Zimmermann threw six curveballs in a two-batter span. Leury Garcia swung and missed at three in a row for a strikeout to take the sacrifice fly out of play. Moncada, who struck out in seven of 13 career at-bats against Zimmermann before Friday, took all three curveballs he saw, none of which drew strikes from Tichenor, walking in a run as Gardenhire griped from the dugout.

“Gardy wasn’t just out there talking about the color of the bathroom drapes,” bench coach Steve Liddle said. “He was just kind of protecting his player.”

Tichenor eventually tossed Gardenhire, his 78th career ejection. This one followed the first bases-loaded walk Zimmermann allowed since Cincinnati’s Fred Lewis drew one on Aug. 28, 2011.

“I don't know where to throw it,” Zimmermann said. “Most of the time you get in the game and you get going, you know where the umpire gives [strikes] and where he doesn't give. And I had no clue where he was giving tonight.”

Zimmermann remained until two singles and a walk chased him in what became a five-run seventh. His four walks marked his most since July 22, 2017.

Adding to the oddities of this game was a Detroit offense comprised of solo homers, including Josh Harrison’s first as a Tiger and Grayson Greiner’s first as a Major Leaguer, along with Niko Goodrum’s second of the year. Perhaps the only thing that seemed to fit was White Sox reliever Ryan Burr replacing Rodon with the temperature reading 39 degrees on the Comerica Park scoreboard.