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The White Sox wasted two home runs by Carlos Quentin last night, losing to the Mariners in 10 innings, 7-4. Sergio Santos couldn’t get anyone out in the final frame, surrendering three runs to dig the Sox a hole they couldn’t climb out of in their last raps.

Q bashed his 16th homer of the season in the first inning, which staked Gavin Floyd to a lead he held onto for a while – just not long enough. Between Floyd’s three runs allowed – he still contributed a Quality Start in his 6.0 innings – and Jesse Crain’s one, the Sox trailed 4-2 when Q hit No. 17 in the eighth with a man on to pull the Good Guys even.

Santos threw a scoreless ninth, but it looked like one inning was his limit last night. And the Sox batters could do nothing to recover. It was the South Siders’ 13th blown lead of the season. Had they won, it would have been their ninth comeback win of the year, but it was not to be.

It seemed to me that the team has played a lot of extra-inning affairs in 2011, so I checked. The Sox have already put in for overtime pay 10 times in 64 games, which works out to 25 games on the season. Given their 4-6 record in those contests, that projects to 10-15 for the season.

Ten games this early in the year seemed like a lot, so I checked the number of games – and win-loss records – going back to the halcyon days of 2005. Here’s what the stats show: 2005, 11-8; 2006, 7-7; 2007, 6-4; 2008, 8-1; 2009, 4-4; and 2010, 6-6. Overall from the start of the World Series year to the present (approximately 6.4 seasons), the Sox are 46-36, a .561 winning percentage. Compare that to their record in games that did not go into extra innings during that period: 474-454, or a .511 winning percentage. So the Sox have played much better in overtime games than they have otherwise – just not this year. Go Sox!