Edwin Jackson rediscovered his good slider, while Ervin Santana threw a number of hangers.
So this game turned out exactly like it should have.
The takeaway here is that the offense continues to hammer fat pitches, and nobody did that better than Carlos Quentin, who doubled twice and tossed in a homer at the end for a five-RBI night.
Gordon Beckham's laser homer to left gave the Sox a 2-0 lead in the second, but Quentin put the game out of reach with his pair of two-baggers. He drilled a rolling 0-2 slider to right-center to make it a 3-0 game in the third, and came back two innings later with a rope down the left-field line. The Sox led 4-0, and all runs scored with two outs.
Thanks to Quentin and Edwin Jackson, the Angels never brought the tying run to the plate from the third inning on.
Jackson was superb. He pitched seven strong innings, allowing only five singles and a walk, which came in his final inning of work. He got back to starting his slider just above the knees of Los Angeles Angels' lineup, which helped him get five strikeouts and a key ground ball off the bat of Torii Hunter, which turned into a 5-4-3 double play and killed the last good threat they had (two on, one out while trailing by four).
Following Hunter's double play, Alexei Ramirez started the seventh with a solo shot, and Quentin added his blast later in the inning.
Notes:
*Alex Rios was 0-for-4 at the plate, but he had a nice night in the outfield. He hit the cutoff man on deep fly to center, which caused a tagging Alberto Callaspo to stop in his tracks. Vernon Wells had already tagged up from first, so Callaspo had nowhere to go. Brent Morel slapped a tag on him for the 8-6-5 double play.
In the ninth inning, Rios preserved the shutout with a nice running catch on a slicing liner to right-center off the bat of Howie Kendrick.
*Chris Sale, debuting "new mechanics," entered with an eight-run lead and started the inning with three straight balls. He rebounded to throw a scoreless inning, although he did eventually walk a batter to go along with a strikeout.
Record: 14-22 | Box score | Play-by-play