The pain in Paul Maholm’s left wrist didn’t flare until the fourth inning. It wasn’t related to damage done one inning earlier to the veteran pitcher’s steadily rising ERA and the Braves’ chances of winning Saturday.
After the Braves staked him to an early 4-0 lead, Maholm gave it all up in a five-run third inning that included an Alex Rios grand slam, and the White Sox pulled away to a 10-6 win at U.S Cellular Field.
Maholm, who has lost three consecutive starts, left in the fourth inning with a sprained left wrist. The left-hander injured it while batting July 10 at Miami and said it didn’t bother him Saturday until he his fourth-inning warmup tosses.
“I tried to get through the warmups and get through the first few hitters (in the fourth) and see if I could do it,” said Maholm (9-9), who was charged with seven hits, seven runs and two walks in three-plus innings. “It was something that just wasn’t going away.”
X-rays were negative, and manager Fredi Gonzalez said he didn’t think Maholm would require a stint on the 15-day disabled list and might not miss a start.
Freddie Freeman had a home run and three RBIs in his first game back in the lineup after missing the All-Star game with a jammed thumb, and Dan Uggla hit his team-high 19th homer and third in four games.
But the Braves went from leading by four runs to trailing by five in a span of two innings and never could recover against the White Sox and Jake Peavy (6-5), who allowed four runs (two earned) and seven hits in six innings in his first start game since June 4. He had been on the disabled list recovering from a fractured rib.
“We scored four runs right off the get-go,” Gonzalez said. “That’s something (Maholm) is probably upset about. We get four runs, and then he goes back out and they got five runs off him.”
Maholm allowed a double and single to the eighth and ninth batters in the order to start the fourth, and both would score during a four-run inning that pushed the White Sox lead to 9-4.
Nothing is “worse than your guys giving you a 4-0 lead and you giving it back,” said Maholm, who is 0-3 with a 10.12 ERA in three July starts, with 23 hits and 15 earned runs allowed in just 13 1/3 innings.
Maholm made it clear that his wrist was not a factor in the third-inning meltdown, saying he felt fine at that point, but just made some poorly located pitches. Like the first-pitch sinker he threw over the middle of the plate to Rios, who snapped a homerless drought of 120 at-bats.
“I made some bad pitches, and that was probably the worst one I could have made,” Maholm said. “And obviously he did what he was supposed to do with it.”
Maholm needs to get healthy, then he needs to get out of a rut. Particularly on the road, where he has lost four of his past five starts and struggled mightily for almost the entire season.
He has a 1.93 ERA in seven home starts, but Maholm is 4-7 with a 6.02 ERA in 13 road starts.
After allowing no runs while winning his first two road starts, Maholm is 2-7 with a 7.58 ERA in his past 11 road starts.
“It’s not the first time I’ve gone through a bad stretch in my career, and it’s not probably going to be the last one,” he said. “It’s no fun. It’s not as if I don’t think I can correct it pretty easily. I’m going to do my best to make sure I’m able to throw my bullpen in-between and correct it.”
The White Sox were 4-for-4 against Maholm with runners in scoring position, raising his average allowed in those situations to .340 (34-for-100) for the season, including 13 extra-base hits.
