It seems like a simple formula: Great start by your stopper, four consecutive home runs by your offense and seven total runs. And today, it was the White Sox who did it!
A historic — just 10 times in history — outburst by Yoán Moncada, Yasmani Grandal, José Abreu and Eloy Jiménez put the White Sox up, 7-0, and they held on behind another strong effort from Dallas Keuchel.
The White Sox are back to .500 and hope to feast on Detroit in four games this week, starting Monday.
The Starts
Keuchel, what can you say. He’s had no single brilliant outing, just a string of solid ones, which gives him the team’s highest cumulative game score (56.8) this season. Today, Kid Keuchy scored a 57, nearly clearing six scoreless innings before a cranky back and feisty St. Louis offense bounced him.
Dakota Hudson was very strong, and very slow, for St. Louis. His four innings of one-run ball actually outdueled Keuchel, with a 66 game score.
Pressure Play
The score was just 1-0 White Sox when Moncada came up with two outs and ducks on the pond. With Roel Ramirez struggling to get any breaking pitches over, the third baseman reeled him in and destroyed a fastball to deep right field, a 1.91 LI play.
Pressure Cooker
Moncada, surely on the strength of his clutch three-run homer, totaled a game-high 0.99 pLI.
Top Play
Shocker, but Moncada’s homer also delivered .205 WPA the best mark of the game.
Game MVP
With all the talk of home runs, it was Dallas Keuchel’s .226 WPA that made him the top player in the game, eking past Moncada and Jiménez in a White Sox sweep of the category.
Magic Number: 3
Let’s focus not on the four consecutive homers, and instead give plaudits to the first three homers, by Moncada, Grandal and Abreu. Those marked the first three consecutive home runs by Cuban natives in major league history. More than that, it’s the first time three consecutive homers have been hit by players from the same country (not including the U.S.) in MLB history.