ARLINGTON, Texas — Dylan Cease didn’t make it out of the second inning. Pedro Grifol was ejected in the third.
The Chicago White Sox offense, meanwhile, put up zero after zero for the third straight game.
It was another tough night for the Sox, who were blown out by the Texas Rangers 11-1 on Wednesday in front of 28,735 at Globe Life Field.
“It was a rough one,” Cease said of his start. “Not enough strikes, not enough execution and they did a good job of hitting it.”
The Sox lost for the ninth time in 11 games and are a season-high 23 games under .500 at 43-66.
The rough times continued for the Sox offensively as they saw a scoreless streak extend to 26 innings before Seby Zavala hit a home run with two outs in the eighth.
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“We’re hitting too many groundballs,” manager Pedro Grifol said. “They’re pitching us down in the zone and we’re hitting too many groundballs. We chased quite a bit today, too. We’re not putting good swings on hittable pitches and we’re chasing pitches that are not in the strike zone.”
Zavala’s home run was the team’s first run since the seventh inning of Saturday’s 7-2 win against the Cleveland Guardians. They lost 5-0 to the Guardians on Sunday and 2-0 to the Rangers on Tuesday, the second time they had been blanked in consecutive games this season.
The home run also snapped a streak of 21 straight retired by former Sox Dane Dunning. The Rangers right-hander allowed one run on three hits with 11 strikeouts and one walk in 7 2/3 innings.
The Sox have struck out 18 times in the first two games of the series (16 on Tuesday and 12 on Wednesday). They have seven hits (three Tuesday and four Wednesday).
“Things aren’t going great for us right now, so we are going to have to figure out how to get out of it and have some fun because if you don’t have fun, it’s going to be miserable for a few months,” Zavala said.
By the time Zavala hit his home run, the Rangers were well in command.
Cease surrendered a two-run home run to Corey Seager in the first. He threw 45 pitches during a five-run second inning for the Rangers, exiting with two outs.
“(His) stuff seemed to be OK, but it’s hard to tell when you don’t have command,” Grifol said. “You have to command your fastball. It’s tough to pitch off your offspeed pitches. That’s the biggest thing for me. Every time he’s had really good outings, he’s commanded his fastball. And that’s a really important thing for every pitcher. Just got to get back to work and command the fastball.”
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Cease threw 79 pitches in his outing, allowing seven runs on seven hits with three walks and one strikeout in 1 2/3 innings.
“(My stuff) was pretty good,” Cease said. “It wasn’t super consistent with the slider but the other stuff was pretty sharp.”
It’s been a hectic week for Cease, whose name was mentioned in trade speculation.
“I felt focused today so I don’t think that affected me in any way,” he said.
Grifol argued calls during the middle of the third inning and was ejected by Adam Hamari. It was Grifol’s fourth time getting tossed from a game this season.
“The (second) inning he missed a couple of pitches,” Grifol said. “He missed one crucial one against (Adolis) García, that I thought was a strike, that I know was a strike. And I thought he missed another one off (Luis) Robert (Jr.). Missed a few more off other hitters and I just wanted to make sure that he knew that I know he was missing pitches.
“I wanted him to just make adjustments. Obviously they have to do a job, too. And he feels he was calling a good game and I felt he was calling a bad game. Pretty simple. His opinion, my opinion.”
As the slide continues, the team is working on ways to get out of the rut.
“We’ve had fun at points, but we just have to do it more consistently because coming to the field when you are losing every day, it really sucks,” Zavala said. “We have to figure it out.”