Home sweet home! White Sox crush Marlins, 9-1

A great start for the Chicago White Sox just kept getting better. After the game got off to an ominous start, with Ivan Nova hitting Curtis Granderson, Nova and the defense were able to get through the inning unscathed with just five more pitches. Then, the offense got to work, spurring a 9-1 win over the Miami Marlins.

After Jon Jay singled and reached second, Jose Abreu lined a double down the left-field line to open up the scoring just three batters in for the good guys.

The next batter, Yoan Moncada, roped a single to right, and Abreu came running home. Just like that, the Sox were up 2-0. Isn’t playing the Marlins fun! That long ball I told everybody about in the gamethread would provide the offense for the rest of the game. Only it was Jorge Alfaro who started the home run barrage, with a solo shot in the second to halve the White Sox lead.

Good thing for the Sox the next four homers were theirs. Jose Abreu again got a hold of a bad pitch from Marlins starter Trevor Richards, this time resulting in his 22nd home run of the year.

Then cleanup hitter Moncada wanted to join in the fun again:

Yes, that bat drop is so sweet, as Moncada set it down for the 18th time this year. That and every home run he hits for the rest of the season will be a career high, as Moncada’s breakout season continues. The Sox were now on top, 7-1, and drove Richards out of the game. The South Side hitters were not done filleting some fish, as James McCann and Ryan Goins went back:

to back:

By the end of the game, the Sox had collected nine runs on just 10 hits, which is pretty remarkable. Seven of those hits were for extra bases, including the four homers. They only had runners in scoring position in five at-bats, but the offense was effective when it needed to be, going 4-for-5 with runners in scoring position. In all, the team only left two runners on base, just two; they were almost perfect when it mattered the most. Only three batters did not reach base, and you probably could have guessed them, AJ Reed, Yolmer Sánchez, and Adam Engel.

A special batting note is the apparent offensive force of Ryan Goins. He is now hitting .462 with a 1.533 OPS with the Sox so far. He already has two homers in just five games since his promotion. This is not a statement on what type of player Ryan Goins is now in the MLB, but it is something to note. In Triple-A, Goins had by far his highest ISO at any level and at any point in his career, at .209. His 12 home runs he now has between Triple-A and MLB is his calendar-year career high as a professional. Again, not saying anything, but it is worth noting at this point.

While this home-run barrage by the South Siders kept going on and on, Nova kept going through the Marlins bats. The only run Nova allowed was that Alfaro home run in the second, as he threw seven shutout innings to end the game. That’s right! Ivan Nova threw a complete game in 2019. It was his first nine-inning complete game since April 29, 2017, so it has been awhile. The last couple of innings swelled Nova’s pitch total. but for most of the game he was initiating a lot of timely soft contact — not timely in bases-full sense, but literally a time sense. This game lasted a smidge less than 2 ¹⁄₂ hours because of the way Nova pitched.

A complete team win, if ever there was.

I say, Mr. Nova, you made it look easy tonight.

There was also some news before and during this game as well. Here is the broadcast on the foul pole to foul pole nets.

Also, some news on Tim Anderson who thinks he will be ready in one to two weeks.

And an update from Eloy Jimenez himself: