Reeling Rockies hammered by lowly White Sox, lose fifth straight

Leave it to the 2024 Colorado Rockies to make the Chicago White Sox look like the ’27 Yankees.

The White Sox entered the weekend series with a major league-worst 22-61 record. Then they beat the reeling Rockies, 5-3, on Friday night at Guaranteed Rate Field.

On Saturday, the Rockies’ once-promising afternoon quickly turned into a train wreck. After leading 3-0 midway through the fifth inning, the Rockies served up four home runs and lost 11-3.

The 11 runs were a season-high for the White Sox. It marked the 14th time this season that Colorado has given up 10 or more runs, the most in the majors.

The Rockies (27-55) have lost five straight, skidded to 6-20 in June, and are on pace to lose 109 games.

Rockies right-hander Cal Quantrill pitched like a bona fide ace for the first four innings. He blanked the White Sox and gave up just two hits and struck out six. He was cruising.

Then Quantrill spun out.

In the fifth, Nicky Lopez hit a one-out double and trotted home on No. 9 hitter Lenyn Sosa’s two-run homer to right, cutting Colorado’s lead to 3-2. Still, Quantrill was so good early that the inning seemed like an aberration. Only it wasn’t.

Luis Robert Jr. launched a 470-foot moonshot off a hanging curveball to lead off the sixth and tie the game. Quantrill struck out Gavin Sheets but then plunked Andrew Vaughn, setting the table for Paul DeJong’s two-run homer and a 5-3 Chicago lead.

The three home runs tied Quantrill’s career high. He also served up three homers at Boston’s Fenway Park on Sept. 3, 2021. Quantrill’s bottom line: 5 1/3 innings, five runs allowed on seven hits, eight strikeouts, no walks and a 3.78 ERA.

Quantrill took the mound with a 3.50 ERA, the lowest by a Rockies starter through their first 16 starts of a season since Kyle Freeland began 2018 with a 3.29 ERA.

Chicago’s sixth-run eighth, featuring a three-run homer from Korey Lee off reliever Riley Pint, turned the game into a laugher.

The Rockies had just four hits, but two of them were home runs: a solo shot by Brendan Rodgers in the second and a two-run blast by Nolan Jones in the fifth. Both homers came off White Sox starter Jonathan Cannon.

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