CHICAGO — The sight of Kevin Millwood leaving a game early this season has become a common one for the Texas Rangers.

So when Millwood left after 1 2/3 innings Wednesday, a taxed bullpen knew the routine.

The Chicago White Sox, however, flipped the script on the Rangers, rallying for a 10-8 victory.

The loss was especially painful for the Rangers because — despite another early exit by Millwood — they had the pitchers they wanted in the game when they wanted them.

But seventh-inning specialist Jamey Wright, set-up man Eddie Guardado and closer C.J. Wilson couldn’t get the job done. Wright wasn’t sharp (one inning, one run). Guardado had one of his worst outings of the season (two-thirds of an inning, four runs) and Wilson blew the save by allowing Carlos Quentin’s three-run homer in the bottom of the eighth on a pitch Wilson called a “meatball.”

“It’s frustrating when things like that happen,” said Guardado (1-2), whose ERA went from 2.72 to 3.65. “The team battles all day. The bullpen battles. I battled, but I didn’t get the job done. It’s plain and simple. Everybody’s accountable for their actions and it just didn’t work out.”

The relievers were put in another tough situation by Millwood.

The right-hander left in the second inning with a sore right groin, forcing the Rangers to scramble from there. It looked good for a while, as the Rangers built an 8-4 lead.

But Chicago scored once in the seventh, and five more in the eighth. Of the five relievers the Rangers used to run their major-league high to 372 2/3 innings of work, four gave up at least one run.

Wednesday’s game marked the fifth time this season that Millwood has left a game early because of an injury. That’s more than once every four starts for Millwood, who has made 19 starts.

It’s the third time the groin has forced him to leave. The other two were because of shin problems, and Millwood has now pitched five or fewer innings in seven starts.

“It got sore to where I couldn’t push off,” said Millwood, who allowed Jim Thome's three-run home run before leaving. “I couldn’t throw any strikes when that happened. It’s annoying. It’s frustrating. I just want to be able to get it taken care of without having to worry about it.”

Manager Ron Washington didn’t want to put the blame for the game on Millwood. The Rangers rallied from a 3-1 deficit and were up 8-4 after Jarrod Saltalamacchia’s two-run single in the seventh.

“We thought we had the game,” Washington said. “You’re up 8-5 going into the eighth inning and you bring in your two best relievers and before you can get out of the inning they’ve got five runs. It was disappointing, but we’ve bounced back from disappointments before and we’ll bounce back from this one.”