That's two, Hector

You can't complain too much about the losses the Sox have endured this year. They've been flat out beat most of the time, but two of the eight losses Hector Santiago has had his hand in. More on that below.

What will probably be overlooked in this afternoon's 5-4 14 inning loss to the Oakland A's will be another solid performance by Chris Sale. He allowed two runs on six hits in eight innings. More than enough for a win. But the Sox offense was in sleep mode again as they only scored two runs in nine innings.

Paulie connected for his 400th career home run to lead off the ninth tying the game at two and pushing the game into extra innings. The game remained tied until the 14th when Alexei Ramirez hit a two out, two run double to give the Sox a 4-2 lead.

Unfortunately that wasn't enough cushion for Hector Santiago.

Santiago surrendered a game tying two run bomb off the bat of Yoenis Cespedes. The next three batters singled enabling the winning run to cross the plate.

The question now has to be raised, how much longer does Santiago close?

I'm not advocating pulling him out of the role JUST YET but you also don't want to be giving games away this early in the season. We saw this play out last year and the destruction it can cause. The Sox are a team that in order to contend will need every win they can get. Already, two games have been lost by Santiago's blown saves. Another alarming stat is the four home runs he's given up in his last six innings of work. That won't work.

You can't fault Santiago for everything though. The bats went 1-11 with RISP and made silly baserunning blunders. In the 13th, Brent Lillibridge and Gordon Beckham were called on to pinch run for Adam Dunn and Paul Konerko with nobody out.. Lillibridge was picked off second base which proved costly because two batters later Alex Rios shot a ball at A's third basemen Eric Sogard who deflected the ball all the way to the A's bullpen. Gordon tried to score from 1st but was gunned down on a nice relay play by Cliff Pennington.

The Sox fall to 10-8 and are in a three way tie for first in the AL Central with the Detroit Tigers (10-8) and the Cleveland Indians (9-7).

Tomorrow, the Sox return home to open a four game series against the Boston Red Sox. Phil Humber should get a big ovation from the home crowd as he will make his first start since his perfect game. I'm setting the over/under on perfect game montages on the U.S. Cellular Field scoreboard at 3.