Poor pitching overshadows Luis Robert's stellar showing in 7-6 loss to Tigers

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The ball exploded off the White Sox’ bats Saturday, chasing Tigers starter Kenta Maeda, who allowed six runs in 3⅓ innings. Luis Robert Jr. homered twice off of him. On a day when the Sox’ pitching wasn’t at its best, the offense almost bailed it out.

Almost.

After holding a lead through six innings, the Sox’ bullpen imploded. It allowed two runs in the seventh that tied the game and the go-ahead run in the 10th that sent the Tigers to a 7-6 victory.

Sox starter Michael Soroka allowed four runs in five innings.

“It’s one of those games where I need to settle in a little earlier, let it go and try not to do too much,” Soroka said. “It wasn’t really until the fourth or fifth inning that I felt like I was hitting my stride. In a game where Luis [Robert Jr.] has a day like today, it needs to be a win, in my opinion. That’s on me.”

Soroka said he was a bit too excited for his first start of the season.

“When you’re a little overamped, you tend to throw through things,” Soroka said. “Things flatten out as opposed to liven up; that kind of goes the other way sometimes. [His pitching] just didn’t have that bite on it.”

It isn’t time to sound the alarm on Soroka after his strong camp, where he had a 1.38 ERA over four starts. Manager Pedro Grifol still has confidence in him.

Though the Sox’ pitching performance was disappointing, Robert put on a show. He connected on a four-seam fastball and sent it 449 feet, the Sox’ first run of the season.

Then Robert crushed a slider to give the Sox a 5-3 lead. He went 3-for-4 with four RBI, seeing 29 pitches over his five plate appearances.

“He’s focusing on that,” Grifol said. “He’ll take the walk, just like he showed today. But if you come in the strike zone he’s got capabilities of hurting you.

“Not only did I like those at-bats, the way they ended up in homers, but his other at-bat, he ended up hitting a base hit to right field. That means he’s not trying to do too much. He’s staying within himself and letting the game come to him a little bit.”

For Robert, the performance validated the work and time he put in during the offseason.

“I was doing a specific drill during the offseason just focusing on one quadrant of the strike zone,” Robert said. “If the pitch is not there, don’t try to swing at pitchers that aren’t there. I worked a lot on that.”

Robert knows the type of threat he is at the plate and as a runner.

“That guy right there can win MVP, that’s for dang sure,” said shortstop Braden Shewmake, who also homered off Maeda. “I think everybody in here knows that. I think he knows that, too.”

After losing 1-0 in the opener, Grifol said his team responded with a solid job battling. But the Sox need to figure out how to win these games, particularly when Robert has a performance like he did.

“It’s just two games,” Robert said. “We were able to put up some runs today. At the end, it didn’t go our way. But it’s more games to play.”