The White Sox lacked the inured Munetaka Murakami, but they didn’t lack the long ball late, piling it on to turn close game into rout, 7-1.
They say sinker ball pitchers can struggle in the first inning, and Framber Valdez certainly proved them right, chasing a Chase Meidroth leadoff double with two walks, a wild pitch and an Edgar Quero sac fly to put the Sox up, 2-0. Valdez settled down after that, but ran out of gas in the seventh despite having a relatively low pitch count (74 through six) to keep things close despite the toothless Tiger offense.
Anthony Kay sent Detroit down in order in the first and second despite being hit quite hard, but gave up a leadoff homer to .169 hitter Wenceel Perez to start the third to close the gap to 2-1. Against a good team, Kay probably would have had a short day, but the much-injured and generally awful Tigers went 0-for-6 with RISP, so the southpaw made it through five innings on six hits, one run, one walk, three K’s and 84 pitches.
The Sox bullpen was lights-out, with Grant Taylor coming in with two on and none out in the sixth and proceeding to retire six in a row, four by strikeout. Seranthony Domínguez tossed a clean eighth, but with a little help from Sam Antonacci — feel free to ignore all the drunken shirtless idiots in the first few seconds of the video.
Even Trevor Richards managed to get through the ninth on just one hit.
Meanwhile, the Sox offense decided 2-1 was too close for comfort. Quero led off the the seventh with a high fly struck at only 97.7 mph but landing in the seats, and later Andrew Benintendi doubled and scored when Rikuu Nishida picked up his second career RBI with a single.
That made it 4-1 Sox, more than enough of an edge against the Tigers declawed offense, but Chicago piled it up via long balls in the eighth. The first was an 106.8 mph Colson Montgomery solo shot. After a Quero single, Benintendi blasted a two-run shot.
Heck, Benintendi doesn’t hit the highlight reel often, so let’s give him a break here:
Voila! Up 7-1, which is how it would finish.
That’s five wins in a row, taking the White Sox record to a lofty 31-27. The series and the month wrap up tomorrow afternoon, with Sean Burke throwing for Chicago and Keider Montero for Detroit.