A day of struggles for Fulmer
SOX NOTEBOOK
It was a beautiful day for baseball Tuesday at Guaranteed Rate Field for everyone but White Sox right- hander Carson Fulmer.
In 4‰ innings, Fulmer walked six, hit two batters, threw a wild pitch, balked and was hit in the right shin by a comebacker off the bat of the Rays’ Mallex Smith. He allowed four runs ( three earned) and five hits and struck out four in the Sox’ 6- 5 loss, their fifth in a row.
‘‘ I mean, [ I] definitely wanted better results,’’ Fulmer said. ‘‘ One of the kind of good things overall, I was able to minimize [ damage]. I think that that’s one of the positive things that I took out of it. But I fell behind some counts. [ I] made a couple of good pitches, but you know the walks [ are] a really big thing for me that I pride myself on a lot. Obviously, there were six of them. That can’t happen.’’
Despite Fulmer’s struggles, manager Rick Renteria said he was confident they are just growing pains.
‘‘ I thought he battled,’’ Renteria said. ‘‘ I thought he was keeping us in the ballgame. Walks will get us a little bit, hit batsmen. Those are all things we’ll continue to try to work on and clean up.’’
Rays starter Blake Snell didn’t allow a hit until Tyler Saladino’s ground- rule double moved Nicky Delmonico ( walk) to third with one out in the fifth. Adam Engel followed with an RBI grounder to account for the Sox’ only run against Snell, who yielded only one hit, struck out 10 and walked five in six innings.
Trailing 6- 1, the Sox rallied in the ninth. TimAnderson led off with a double against Ryan Weber, stole third and scored on a sacrifice fly by pinch hitter Yolmer Sanchez. After Leury Garcia reached on an error by second baseman JoeyWendle and YoanMoncada walked, closer Alex Colome came on to retire Avisail Garcia on a softly hit grounder to the mound before allowing a three- run home run to Jose Abreu that pulled the Sox to 6- 5. Colome then walked Matt Davidson before Omar Narvaez lined to right to end the game.
‘‘ When he hit that ball out of the ballpark, it puts a little charge in you,’’ Renteria said of Abreu’s homer. ‘‘ You start to get that sense of confidence again.
‘‘ I wish we’d been able to give the fans a lot of victories over these last five days. We haven’t. It’s not for a lack of effort.’’
Castillo day- to- day
Catcher Welington Castillo left the game with soreness in his right knee after falling in the batter’s box in the fourth inning and was replaced by Narvaez.
‘‘ His spike stuck in the ground a little bit,’’ Renteria said. ‘‘ Tweaked his knee. He’s day- to- day. He should be fine.’’
Eloy’s return
Top prospect Eloy Jimenez, who strained a chest muscle March 31, returned to action Monday.
He participated in an extended spring- training game in Arizona and went 0- for- 4.