Martin stingy in heartbreaking finale of grueling road trip

WEST SACRAMENTO – The long and winding road of this 10-game, 10-day, three-city, three time zone road trip for the White Sox leads them back to Chicago for a Monday off-day following a heartbreaking 3-2 loss to the Athletics in 10 innings Sunday at Sutter Health Park. Let’s take a look at what transpired since the South Siders left home on April 17.

OPENERS

This category is literally focused on the opener employed by the visitors in all three games against the A’s with Tyler Gilbert being used twice and Brandon Eisert on Sunday. The plan seemed to work, with the bulk trio of Sean Burke, Jonathan Cannon and Davis Martin combining for 6 earned runs allowed over 19 innings.

Martin gave up just three hits over six scoreless innings, striking out five and walking two in the road trip finale.

“We all view ourselves as starters, but at the end of the day, we are going to compete wherever they tell us to compete,” said Martin, who threw 44 of his 73 pitches for strikes. “That’s the mindset going in. Wherever we are, I’m going to go compete my ass off.”

Brian Bannister, the White Sox senior advisor to pitching, explained a little deeper theory behind the opener when speaking to the media prior to Sunday’s contest.

“It does help set up the lineup in favor of the starting pitcher that follows, especially when there's a little thump. You're guaranteed to get their best hitters in the first inning,” Bannister said. “So, just giving an alternate look, an alternate hand could be really successful.

“We're at a point now, with the loss of Martín [Pérez] short term, our entire Major League pitching staff is making $10 million. There's a lot of guys with less than a year of service time, so anything we can do to facilitate that adjustment to the Major League level and give them an edge just against these opposing lineups, can be very beneficial.”

JOURNEY

Travel is part of the life of a professional athlete, and three-city trips are not as prevalent but still not uncommon in Major League Baseball. The 5,302 air miles without an off-day, going from the East Coast to the Midwest to the West Coast, ranges from a bit unusual to a bit challenging for the South Siders.

“I felt myself waking up at 6 o’clock in the morning wide awake when we got here,” White Sox first baseman Andrew Vaughn said. “It’s part of it. We travel all the time. The time zones would be the only difference that I can think of.”

“Pretty good being on the road. Nothing big,” said catcher Edgar Quero, who started at designated hitter Sunday. “I’m excited to be back home and ready to play over there.”

Quero has been up in the Majors for 11 games. Only one of them has taken place in Chicago.

“These guys have been grinding. We've talked about the three time zones, 10-game road trip, it's a lot,” manager Will Venable said. “So we'll be happy to get home.”

ASSISTANCE

Tim Elko did not play for the White Sox in any of these 10 road games. In fact, he hasn’t been with the White Sox since a stint at big league Spring Training in Arizona. But the first baseman is making his presence known with Triple-A Charlotte, hitting two more home runs during the Knights’ 13-12 victory in 12 innings on Sunday.

Elko has nine for the season to go with 20 RBIs. He’s also hitting .354 with a 1.164 OPS.

“He came into Spring Training knowing, 'I've got to improve the swing decisions, being able to make quality contact off of breaking balls,'” said White Sox director of hitting Ryan Fuller. “He's doing that.

“That's what you want all these guys to be able to do. We give them a plan. We tell them what they do great and areas they need to improve. To see him go out and execute at a high level so far this year is really encouraging."

In putting the focus upon players with the White Sox, Miguel Vargas went 1-for-3 with a walk, giving him eight hits in his last five games. Luis Robert Jr. drove in the go-ahead run in the 10th, adding two stolen bases to give him an American League best at 10, before Luis Urías sent the White Sox home with a two-run walk-off home run against Jordan Leasure.

“Our guys played great, really on both sides of the ball,” Venable said. “Just got to find ways to get that one more run, that one more hit, whatever it might be, to finish off some of these games.”