White Sox 6, Tigers 3: Garcia punishes former team

In each game of this series, Avisail Garcia had multiple hits. It's easy to pull out the narrative of the traded player relishing the chance to get back at his old team. But it certainly fit this afternoon.

Garcia went 3 for 5, all singles, and drove in two runs.  Jeff Keppinger also went 3 for 5, with two singles and a double, and also drove in two runs.  Conor Gillaspie only went 1 for 4 with a walk but his triple also scored two.

When the White Sox manage to score six runs, the pitching needs to jump at the chance to get a win.  Erik Johnson pitched to contact - giving up 9 hits and no walks while striking out only 1 - but he managed to scatter the baserunners enough to only allow two runs.

Johnson only found himself in trouble a couple times.  In the 4th inning, Prince Fielder led off with a home run. Victor Martinez then singled.  Johnson got Don Kelly to pop-out to Alexei Ramirez but Alex Avila followed that up with a single to put runners on the corner. Don Cooper came out to settle his rookie down and Johnson got the next two batters out.

He got into trouble again in the 7th, with Avila, Ramon Santiago and Nick Castellanos all singling around an Omar Infante flyout. Cooper again came out but Johnson gave up a sacrifice fly to Austin Jackson to score Avila and that was it for Johnson.

Donnie Veal came on and he retired pinch-hitter Torii Hunter to end the threat.

Veal pitched a scoreless 8th but gave up a double to the pinch hitting Brayan Pena to open the 9th. Matt Lindstrom came on for his 73rd appearance of the season and provided flashbacks to last night when Infante singled to put runners on the corners with nobody out.

Lindstrom did allow Pena to score on a Ramon Santiago forceout but then he got Castellanos to groundout and struck out Jackson to prevent the series sweep.

Record: 61-94 | Box score | Play-by-play