“Today obviously falls on me,” Cannon said. “I did not put us in a good position to win the game today.”

DETROIT — White Sox right-hander Jonathan Cannon apparently likes to play with danger.

In each of the first two innings Friday, he found himself in situations with runners in scoring position but was able to work his way out of them by yielding a combined one run. Through two starts, he has allowed three runs, which on the surface looks pretty good. But his penchant for creating traffic on the bases has a price: a high pitch count.

Cannon lasted only 3⅔ innings, allowing three runs, three hits, three walks and two hit batters and striking out three in the Sox’ 7-4 loss to the Tigers at Comerica Park. He threw 88 pitches.

‘‘Today obviously falls on me,’’ Cannon said. ‘‘I did not put us in a good position to win the game today. It’s tough when you fall behind out there in the field, playing defense for forever. It’s tough to generate offense like that when I’m walking a bunch of guys and they’re having to play defense behind me for a long time.’’

Cannon hit a batter to start the second before getting back-to-back groundouts. But he walked Justyn-Henry Malloy on seven pitches before escaping the inning with no damage after getting Kerry Carpenter to fly out. Still, he used more pitches than he had to.

He then labored through a 24-pitch third inning because of his inability to find the strike zone. He said he was forcing his cutter in an effort to get a strikeout.

‘‘Just some very uncompetitive misses, misses that don’t really do me any good, changeups that are sprayed in the right-handed batter’s box or sweepers way too far in the dirt that don’t really help me tunnel for the next pitch,’’ Cannon said. ‘‘When I fall behind early, the pitch count gets up there, too. It just makes it tough on everyone. Bottom line: [I’ve] got to be more efficient, got to be better, got to throw more strikes.’’

The last batter Cannon faced was indicative of his performance. He got ahead of Malloy 0-2 before throwing three pitches — two changeups and a sweeper — far outside the zone. He then struck him out.

‘‘Just got to continue harping on getting ahead,’’ Cannon said. ‘‘I thought I actually did a pretty good job on getting ahead today [12 of 19 batters]. Felt like I was in a lot of two-strike counts. I just threw some uncompetitive pitches to let them back into counts, and it forced me to make pitches there like 3-2. I just shouldn’t let them back in the count like that. I should make some better pitches.’’

Cannon is adept at inducing weak contact and ground balls, but his inability to put hitters away is shortening his starts. Those elongated at-bats tire out Cannon and leave Sox defenders on their feet longer. It also depletes an already-thin bullpen. He has to entice hitters into more quick outs so he can go deeper into the game.

‘‘He pitches to contact, and guys are just really grinding and fouling a lot of balls off,’’ manager Will Venable said. ‘‘I don’t know if there’s anything that he could do differently, other than end at-bats more quickly, and that’s what we’re used to seeing from him. I have no doubt that he’ll get back on track and have a good one the next time around.’’