CHICAGO _ Amid several disturbing trends in the Cardinals' season is the one in which they score in double figures one night and then barely at all the next. For example, in the last two weeks and a day, the Cardinals three times have tallied 11 or more runs in a runaway victory. In the next game, they scored one run, then two runs and on Wednesday night no runs.
Suffice to say that the Cardinals dropped all three, including a 4-0 verdict to the Chicago White Sox and impressive left-hander Carlos Rodon.
Rodon and the Cardinals' Luke Weaver, no doubt, had had this battle before. Rodon was a No. 1 pick out of North Carolina State in 2014 and Weaver the same for Florida State, which is an Atlantic Coast Conference rival of NC State's.
Making just his seventh start since having shoulder surgery in September, Rodon held the Cardinals to three over 7 1/3 innings, striking out seven. Weaver, who had given up just two hits in eight innings in his previous start, permitted only three in six innings this time, but one of the hits set up a run in the fifth inning and he left with nothing to show for his work, much as the Cardinals had little to show for their night.
The Cardinals wrapped up a 5-4 trip to three stops _ Arizona, San Francisco and Chicago _ and dropped back to plus-three at 47-44. Their nadir in the trip finale came in the eighth inning when they loaded the bases with one out on Paul DeJong's bloop single, an error by White Sox second baseman Yoan Moncada and a walk to Matt Carpenter.
Rodon was lifted after his four-pitch walk to Carpenter ran him to 104 pitches and promptly punched a fan in the dugout _ with his right hand. But his disgust soon turned to elation when hard-throwing Juan Minaya fanned Tommy Pham, who had four strikeouts for the night. Then veteran right-hander Joakim Soria struck out Jose Martinez on a slider to quell the threat.
