White Sox Win, 4-1, on Four Solo Shots

First, the good news: The White Sox beat the Tigers, 4-1, in the first game of a four-game series. Of course, you should always beat the Tigers, but it’s still nice.

Now the bad news: The Sox never had a runner on second. Or third. The Tigers only had a runner reach second or third in one inning.

You want to watch baseball die? You saw it tonight — five solo home runs.

As the score indicates, the Sox had four of those, so, for you dinger lovers, here they are:

Yoán Moncada, Jake Lamb, and Yasmani Grandal hit theirs off of Tigers starter Casey Mize — Moncada’s a kind of excuse-me, juiced-ball, opposite-field fly in the first (99.4 mph EV, 358 feet), the other two blasted (108.9/412 and 110/457, respectively). Tim Anderson added his shot off of reliever Daniel Norris (104.9/414). Otherwise the Sox only had two singles, no walks, nine strikeouts.

The only run Lance Lynn gave up was a solo shot to Willi Castro in the fifth. Lynn got in big trouble in a 31-pitch second, getting two quick outs and then loading the bases on a single and two walks. Fortunately, the next batter was Tigers backup backup backup catcher (they have lot of injuries at the position) Jake Rogers, who last had a hit during the Coolidge administration, and Rogers politely struck out on three pitches.

Lynn only needed 58 pitches for his other five innings, giving up no other walks, getting five other K’s and giving up a total of four hits. Aaron Bummer, Evan Marshall and Liam Hendriks cruised through the rest of the game, the only baserunners coming on a dribbler off Bummer and a dropped third strike and fumbleitis by Grandal on a Hendriks punch out and an overturn on the call at first. Sox pitchers totaled two walks and 12 whiffs.

About the only excitement other than watching balls fly out of the park was when Lucas Giolito got a tad overworked on the bench after Adam Eaton got called out on a below-the-zone third strike in the eighth (Eaton’s third K, but who’s counting?) and got the heave-ho from plate umpire Will Little. Presumably, the world Will Little note nor long remember much about the event.

The one run did send Lynn’s ERA soaring, though. It’s now up to 1.23.

For those of you keeping score on the Yerminator, he was naught-for-three, making his streak now naught-for-22. Not that being verbally attacked by his manager has had any influence.

On the positive side of baseball’s attempt to bore fans into submission, the game was over in a snappy 2:30, even with the review of the final play and the Giolito brouhaha, so there were no pace-of-play issues.