CHICAGO – The White Sox suffered their 11th one-run loss of the season Wednesday against the Mariners at Rate Field, falling 6-5.

Rookie right-hander Shane Smith entered his 10th start as one of MLB’s best. His 2.05 ERA ranked 10th among pitchers with at least 40 innings, and was the lowest by a White Sox pitcher in his first nine career starts since Jerry Nyman (1.79) in 1968-69.

But Smith got off to an uncharacteristic start. Three batters into the game, the White Sox trailed 3-0 after two walks and a home run by Julio Rodriguez.

“Just maybe not awake enough for the first,” Smith said. “Not something I can feel pregame or anything like that. But you walk the first guy and think ‘OK, lock in’ and then you walk the second guy and it’s like, ‘Figure something out here,’ and then you go 2-0 and throw a fastball right down the middle.”

Smith said it’s a problem when he’s not throwing fastballs for strike, and thought he may have been pulling off a bit too much with his delivery. So he talked with pitching coach Ethan Katz about his delivery and found the zone as his outing moved along.

Smith settled down and limited the damage, allowing just one hit the rest of his outing. He finished with five innings two hits, three earned runs, two walks and six strikeouts.

“It’s too bad a three-run homer in the first has to wake you up to get outs and throw strikes,” Smith said. “But from then on, it’s really all you can do. It can be a really short day or you can make the most of it.”

As Smith found his groove, so did the White Sox lineup. First baseman Tim Elko crushed a Logan Evans sweeper 407 feet with a 110.6 mph for a solo home run, his third in 32 major league plate appearances.

The White Sox took a 4-3 lead in the fourth with back-to-back home runs by Lenyn Sosa and Joshua Palacios. From then on, the momentum swung back and forth as Cal Raleigh tied the game with a solo home run in the fifth, only for the White Sox to regain the lead in the seventh with a Chase Meidroth RBI single.

The White Sox gave it right back in the eighth, though. Mike Vasil entered the game with a 1.98 ERA, which led MLB rookies with at least 25 innings. But after Rowdy Tellez reached on a single and advanced to second on a fielding error by Michael A. Taylor, Leody Taveras hit Vasil’s changeup 391 feet to give the Mariners a 6-5 lead.

That turned out to be enough for the Mariners to secure the series victory. The White Sox went down in order in the eighth, and couldn’t bring home Andrew Vaughn, who led off the ninth with a single.

With this loss, the White Sox fell to 15-35 on the season, an identical record to last year’s 50-game start. Next up, the White Sox have an off day on Thursday before hosting a weekend series against the Texas Rangers beginning Friday at 6:40 p.m. CT.