CLEVELAND -- For the first 12 games of the 2024 season, the White Sox have seemingly been one hit away from changing the tenor of their season.

Wednesday’s rubber match against the Guardians was no different, as the Sox failed to take advantage of golden scoring opportunities in the eighth and ninth inning in Cleveland’s 7-6 extra-inning win, which denied the White Sox their first series victory of the year.

With the loss, the White Sox now have five one-run losses on the year, which is the most in baseball.

“Really, really tough loss,” manager Pedro Grifol said. “We’ve played a number of games now where if we tacked on a run or two we would’ve put the game in a [different] place. The games have been tight.”

The first golden opportunity came in the eighth when Andrew Vaughn led the inning off with a double but ended it at third thanks to two strikeouts and a groundout.

In the ninth, Paul DeJong opened the inning with a double and then moved to third with no one out on an error by Emmanuel Clase. DeJong had a chance to score when Brayan Rocchio turned a 6-3 double play up the middle, but chose to stay at third. Clase got Lenyn Sosa to ground out to end the inning.

“The perfect ground ball was hit for the perfect play and it happened,” Grifol said. “[If you get thrown out at the plate] you’ve got first and second with one out, which isn’t the same as a man on third base with one out. The perfect ball was hit. I wouldn’t blame DeJong.”

DeJong said the play came down to the lead he had off third base.

“It was going to be a see-it-through type situation, kind of hit it right at him,” he said. “I wasn’t able to get much of a secondary lead because I didn’t want to get doubled up at third by a line drive. It was a tough read and unfortunately we weren’t able to capitalize there.”

The White Sox offense was led by Gavin Sheets, who continued his hot start to the season with a 3-for-5 day with five RBIs. He set the tone with a ringing double to center field off Guardians starter Tanner Bibee before adding on two innings later with a three-run home run to right field. Both balls had an exit velocity over 104 mph.

“He's putting together good at-bats,” Grifol said of Sheets. “Right now he's probably our most consistent at-bat. He’s not missing his pitch.”

With the White Sox adopting a “next man up” mentality thanks to injuries to Yoán Moncada, Luis Robert Jr. and Eloy Jiménez, more pressure will fall on hitters like Sheets. And, through one game, he answered the call.

Sheets added an RBI double in the 10th inning, which temporarily gave Chicago the lead.

“I’m just taking more aggressive swings, probably more than I ever have in my career,” he said. “I’m just trying to feed off that. Last year, I felt like I was lost.”

Bryan Shaw entered in the bottom of the 10th inning, where he got José Ramírez to pop out. But a batter later, Josh Naylor roped an RBI double to the left-center-field gap to tie the game at six. Three batters later, Josh’s younger brother Bo ended the game with an RBI single.

Both Josh and Bo Naylor made their presence known earlier in the game, as they both hit home runs off Erick Fedde in the fourth inning to cut into the White Sox lead. Fedde allowed five runs (four earned) over five innings, but was plagued by the home run, as he also allowed a long ball to Steven Kwan.

“In reality, this game’s on me,” Fedde said. “When they give us a 5-0 lead, I can’t let them back in the game. Got to finish strong, that’s expected, I expect that of myself.”