I don’t know what baseball team played Minnesota earlier this week, but the Chicago White Sox have returned after their hiatus. The White Sox are back and smashed the Kansas City Royals like they have all season. To date, the White Sox has won out against left-handed pitchers. Bad news for SP Danny Duffy 11-6 as they moved to 12-0 against lefties.
The White Sox started this game by giving up the lead. SP Dylan Cease allowed a 1st inning home run to 1B Hunter Dozier, but he made some adjustments and returned for a clean 2nd inning. Edwin Encarnacion smashed his 7th home run to left field and tied the game. Duffy got Yoan Moncada to line-out, he walked Luis Robert, Danny Mendick and Adam Engel both singled to load up the bases for Tim Anderson. Anderson was all over Duffy’s pitches and worked a walk to score a run to give the White Sox the lead back to, a lead they would never give back.
Eloy Jimenez struck out, and it looked like there were going to be some batter stranded on base. Yasmani Grandal was coming up, and Duffy still needed one more out. Duffy threw a wild pitch that scored another run for the Whtie Sox and then walked Grandal to load the bases up for Jose Abreu. Abreu laced a double deep into left-center and scored two more runs for the White Sox. The inning ended at 5-1 after Grandal was thrown out at home. Tim Anderson got in on the home run action in the fourth, bringing the score to 6-1.
Cease (5IP 4H 3ER 2BB 1K 96PC) had labored through five innings, but since the White Sox bullpen had been exhausted in the series against the Twins, Cease came back out for the sixth. 3B Maikel Franco roped a double to deep center, and Alex Gordon ripped a double to score Franco, cutting the lead to 6-2. Ricky Renteria took Cease out and brought in Matt Foster to finish off the inning. Foster allowed two more runs before the inning was over.
The White Sox, just like in the second inning, were able to answer with Abreu. He got another RBI on a single to make it 7-4. Encarnacion got hit by a pitch to load the bases for Yoan Moncada. Moncada ended up hitting a sac fly that scored another run to put the lead at 8-4.
There were still two runners on base when Luis Robert stepped up. Robert worked the count, and RP Jeremy Newberry hung a slider hoping for a strike. He hit that slider straight into orbit for a three-run home run.
Robert essentially ended the game with his sixth 110+ MPH home run, the most in the MLB for this season. The Royals pushed across two more runs in the bottom of the 8th against RP Bernardo Flores, whose debut was not incredibly inspiring. The White Sox won 11-4.
The White Sox took down a team they are supposed to beat. But if they want to make some noise this division, they need to play this way against Cleveland and Minnesota. The bullpen still looks shaky, but the defense was better despite a few mistakes.
Dane Dunning will be donning the hill for the third start of his career. Hopefully, the offense doesn’t let him down and gives him his first victory.