Flexen’s fortunes turn on mammoth HR by De La Cruz
White Sox pitcher Chris Flexen was one pitch away from escaping the third inning with one run allowed. Facing one of the best young hitters in baseball in the Reds’ Elly De La Cruz — on a 0-2 count — Flexen threw a changeup down the middle of the zone that De La Cruz launched for a towering, 449-foot home run.
The third inning was the difference in the Sox’ 11-1 loss Friday night to the Reds at Guaranteed Rate Field. The game continued a troubling trend for the Sox, as another starter failed to pitch into the later innings.
Flexen exited after 2⅔ innings, with six runs allowed and two strikeouts. The righthander said he didn’t have his rhythm from the beginning and missed too many pitches over the plate.
“Terrible,” Flexen said. “I put us in a hole early, put the bullpen in a bad situation. Nothing to be happy about today.”
Flexen’s third-inning meltdown didn’t give the team a chance to compete as Reds starter Andrew Abbott cruised through seven innings, allowing four hits and one run.
“We haven’t really had a game like this,” manager Pedro Grifol said. “It was just one of those games where Flex got himself in some bad counts. We threw over 200 pitches. Against a team like that, you can’t get behind in the count.”
The Sox walked nine batters.
“Free passes, pitching behind in the count in this league and you’re asking for trouble,” Grifol said.
Sluggish offense
After one of the worst offensive starts to a season in team history, the Sox showed signs of life in Cleveland, scoring five-plus runs in two of the three games. But despite the minor improvement, the team still ranks near the bottom of the league in many stats.
The Sox are last in the majors in runs scored, 25th in batting average, 26th in OBP, and 25th in slugging percentage. They are also 29th in the majors in RBI with runners in scoring position (19).
Taking pitches and stringing together at-bats is one way for the team to get out of its collective funk.
“Some of it is just contagious,” center fielder Kevin Pillar told the Sun-Times of getting quality at-bats. “There was a little bit of added pressure on everyone early in the year.”
The veteran outfielder knows firsthand how it feels to struggle at the plate — he started his career going 0-for-17 before his first hit. In the Guardians series, the Sox left 21 runners on base.
“The human emotions kick in, but you have to understand who you are as a player at this level,” Pillar said. “A lot of us have played this game for a while.”
Injury updates
White Sox catcher Max Stassi suffered another injury while recovering from left hip inflammation. Sox general manager Chris Getz said the catcher took a swing off his hand.
“It’s not significant in regards to a fracture, but it slowed it down a little bit,” Getz said. “We want to get him to the point where he can catch back-to-back games.”
Stassi, who was acquired by the Sox in the offseason, didn’t play in 2023 because of family reasons.