White Sox run into trouble in series-opening loss to Yankees

Noah K. Murray/AP Photos

NEW YORK -- Tommy Pham warned ‘em.

The White Sox were enjoying a welcome 11-8 run going into their six-game road trip that kicked off Friday against the Yankees.

But the Sox center fielder wasn’t blowing out candles on a celebratory cake.

“We've got a tough schedule coming up, so it’s going to take a lot of good baseball played by us to beat some of these teams,” Pham said, reminding his teammates the Sox are facing series against the Yankees, Blue Jays, Orioles, Brewers, Cubs and Red Sox in the next three-plus weeks.

Playing bad baseball — Pham's three hits including a double in a 4-2 loss notwithstanding — against the 31-15 Yankees was no way to say hello to the AL East. Newly acquired outfielder Corey Julks, after getting his first hit as a Sox, a double in the fourth, was thrown out at third by Yankees lefty Nestor Cortes on Danny Mendick’s tap in front of the mound.

In the fifth, Zach Remillard was picked off second by Cortes for the second out.

In the first, Pham kicked off the road trip with a leadoff single, advanced to second on a single by Eloy Jimenez and stole third with one out. But Paul DeJong popped out and Andrew Benintendi flied out, stranding Pham.

The Sox were 2-for-9 with runners in scoring position.

There was a passed ball on by Martin Maldonado on a Mike Clevinger sinker that probably didn’t figure in the two runs generated in the fourth by a walk to Aaron Judge and back-to-back doubles by Alex Verdugo and Giancarlo Stanton, but it was a bad look. Maldonado was trying to frame the pitch that was near the bottom of the strike zone.

Judge clobbered a 433-foot homer against Clevinger in the first, his 12^th, and Stanton went deep against Tanner Banks in the sixth for his 10^th.

In any case, Grifol – finally enjoying a respectable stretch a 3-22 stretch that had fans calling for his job -- nodded in agreement with Pham, a 12^th-year veteran who played with the NL champion Diamondbacks last season.

“Honesty is the best way to improvement,” Grifol said. “You cant think you’re doing everything good when in reality you’re not. We have a lot of things to improve on. We have to play better fundamental baseball, we have to improve on that daily. And I’ll be saying that three weeks from now whether we have a better record or don’t.

“We have to improve every day we come on the field because there will always be a mistake on the field, mental or physical, we have to get better. I love his honesty. That’s the truth.”

Making his third start, Clevinger (5.56 ERA) allowed three earned runs over 4 2/3 innings, striking out five and giving up five hits and two walks.

Cortes allowed one unearned run on five hits over seven innings, striking out six Sox and walking one.

Andrew Vaughn singled Remillard home in the third and knocked in Pham with a single in the eighth against Ian Hamilton.

Pinch hitter Gavin Sheets doubled Vaughn to third, putting the tying runs in scoring position, but lefty Caleb Ferguson entered and struck out Benintendi and got Julks on an inning-ending liner to right.

The Sox are 14-31.