ATLANTA — Two of Lucas Giolito’s pitches Sunday were not good.
Most of the other 84 were good, many of them excellent, but the hanging changeup to Freddie Freeman in the first inning and the fastball to Freeman that caught too much of the plate in the sixth inning were driven out of SunTrust Park for two-run homers in the White Sox’ 5-3 loss, their sixth in a row.
The result completed a three-game interleague series sweep for the National League East-leading Braves (84-54). The Sox fell to 60-76.
“It’s pretty tough,” said Giolito (14-8, 3.30 ERA), the Sox’ All-Star right-hander. “I wanted to stop that today. I wasn’t able to get the job done. It happens. You learn from it and move on.”
Freeman’s second blast, to center field, came on the ninth pitch of the at-bat and broke a 2-2 tie. With first base open and two outs, the choice to face Freeman with cleanup hitter Josh Donaldson (33 home runs this season) was looking sound after Giolito jumped ahead in the count at 0-2. But Freeman won the battle with his 38th homer and 112th and 113th RBI.
“Did I think about possibly walking him? Absolutely,” manager Rick Renteria said. “But we had the plan set up, we were confident he was going to be able to execute it and he got ahead 0-2. It was just a matter of finishing the sequence.”
“The fastball after a long at-bat, that was a poor pitch,” Giolito said. “The first changeup I threw him, that usually doesn’t happen to the first changeup I throw a guy. It just shows he’s a good hitter.”
Freeman added an RBI single in the eighth against lefty Aaron Bummer to give him a career-high five RBI and 114 for the season.
Relying heavily on well-located fastballs and changeups, Giolito allowed four hits and one walk and struck out seven in six innings. After the first homer, he retired 14 Braves in a row.
Giolito threw 59 of those 86 pitches for strikes before being pinch-hit for in the seventh.
“It was a pretty good day,” Giolito said, “until the end.”
Giolito, of all people, had driven in the Sox’ first two runs with a single to right-center against Braves righty Julio Teheran that scored Yolmer Sanchez from second and Adam Engel from first. It was the Sox ace’s second career hit.
Jose Abreu’s RBI single in the seventh cut the Braves’ lead to 4-3. The inning ended, though, with Tim Anderson being thrown out by Brian McCann as he tried to steal third with Yoan Moncada at the plate.
“We kind of just have to hit the reset button going into this next series [in] Cleveland,” Giolito said. “We have the ability to win these types of baseball games; it’s just bringing everything together, pitching, hitting and defense. One will waver down, and the others aren’t doing the best job of picking it up. That’s kind of been the story the last week or so. Just got to reset, come together as a team and put it all together and finish strong.”
The Sox are a loss away from matching their season-low seven-game skid against the Athletics and Royals after the All-Star break.
“Right now it’s going to hurt because nobody likes losing,” Renteria said. “They beat us handily the last three days. But when you play 162 games, you better have short memories, just like closers. You have to put this one away and get ready for tomorrow.”
