Despite struggling to find any manner of consistency since the All-Star break, the White Sox are winning the games that matter. Today’s slim, 4-3 win over the Tigers makes for their 64th on the season, and the fourth straight series won or split against an AL Central opponent. Chicago’s destiny is in its own hands in the Central, and to this point they’re doing their best to make sure they stay in control.
Tigers starter Troy Melton was all over the place this afternoon. His command hasn’t always been sharp despite elite results as of late, and today the batted-ball gods swung the other way on him. The Sox posted seven hits through the first two innings, and Melton finished with a final line of nine hits and three earned runs in just 4 1/3 innings, handily his shortest outing of his season.
The particular boogeyman for Melton was his breaking balls, which kept leaking out over the plate against a lefty-heavy Sox lineup. It resulted in a boatload of pulled hits through the right side, with a couple of extra-base hits coming from lefties sitting back on a breaking ball and shooting it the other way. No single Sox hitter stood out as a star, but eight of the nine hitters in the starting lineup recorded a hit, with Randal Grichuk providing two more off the bench, as well as the game-winning run in inning number seven. RBIs were spread between Colson Montgomery (2), Braden Montgomery and Andrew Benintendi.
Melton’s batterymate Eduardo Valencia, meanwhile, had quite a mixed bag of a game. He had a second straight multi-hit effort and launched his sixth home run in just 18 games, but he also cost his team both of their ABS challenge before the conclusion of the fifth inning. Sox catcher Jake Rogers was successful on the team’s only contestation of the day.
Back-to-back doubles to start the fifth looked like it might have been the beginning of the end for Kay, who also had far from his best control today. He threw a lot of pitches that both caught way too much of the zone and many that were way too far away from it. Still, when he missed, he tended to miss low in the zone or below it. Somewhat remarkably, he allowed seven batted balls of at least 95 mph, but none of them managed to break 98. So when Dillon Dingler lined into a tag-up double play to end the back-to-back doubles threat, it allowed Kay to bear down and work into the sixth inning, keeping the Sox bullpen relatively fresh for another day.
This brutal stretch of nearly three weeks without an off-day will in great part depend on how well the bullpen can endure what’s sure to be a lot of strain, and today, they pulled through. Jordan Hicks threw a fantastic 1 2/3 hitless innings of relief after taking over for Kay in the sixth. Two innings later, Grant Taylor looked excellent for the second day in a row, lowering his season ERA to 2.11. To cap off an impeccable day of relief, Bryan Hudson threw an all-too-rare, easy 1-2-3 ninth inning to pick up his fifth save of the year.
The Sox had multiple opportunities to extend or take the lead, leaving runners on third base in both the fifth and seventh innings, and leaving eight men on base in total. Nonetheless, that stellar job from the bullpen secured them the win in a lockdown manner that they’ve struggled to get on a consistent basis all season.
The win brings the White Sox to 64-58 on the year and, more importantly, extends their lead in the AL Central to a season-high 4 1/2 games at the moment. They’ll go for the series sweep tomorrow, putting the ball in the hands of Sean Burke, who certainly hopes that his hot stretch will last a little longer than Melton’s. That’ll be followed up on Monday with Luis Castillo’s third turn through the rotation on his new team, hoping that he can open a huge series at Wrigley Field looking more like his second start with the South Siders than his first. First pitch tomorrow is set for 12:40 p.m. CT, and we’ll see you there!.
MVP
The Bullpen (Jordan Hicks, Grant Taylor, Bryan Hudson): 4 2/3 IP, 0 ER, 1 H, 0 BB, 5 SO
Runners-Up
Randal Grichuk: 2-for-2, 2B, R
Andrew Benintendi: 2-for-4, 2B, R, RBI
Cold Cat
Jake Rogers: 0-for-4, 2 K, GIDP
Runners-Up
Chase Meidroth: 1-for-4
Brenton Doyle: 3 pitches, 1 CS