White Sox 6, Tigers 4: Vaughn comes up clutch again

Hey, I get to cover a win! The Chicago White Sox have secured a series win over the Detroit Tigers with tonight’s 6-4 victory. Both teams went back and forth — until some late-inning heroics by José Abreu, Andrew Vaughn and AJ Pollock.

Lucas Giolito was saved out of some first inning drama after Yoán Moncada made a highlight play at third to secure an inning ending double play with runners on the corners.

That sparked some early-inning offense for the South Siders against Matt Manning, as Pollock and Moncada started the inning with back-to-back singles. Abreu hit a sacrifice fly to left to score Pollock from third and grab a 1-0 lead. In other words, yes, the team finally scored with RISP.

The Tigers came right back in the top of the second inning with a two-out rally to load the bases. Riley Greene hit a two-run double on what was a questionable approach to a fly ball in left by Eloy Jiménez to give the team a 3-1 lead and clear the bases.

In the bottom of the second, Gavin Sheets grabbed a one-out double, and Leury García drove him in with a single.

A Josh Harrison single moved García to third, and he would go on to score from a Pollock sacrifice fly to tie the game right back up, at 3-3.

The back-and-forth continued as our one of our former enemies Eric Haase hit a RBI double to drive in Harold Castro from first base, giving Detroit a 4-3 lead in the top of the third inning.

In the bottom of the fourth, Jiménez had an RBI single of his own after García and Moncada reached base to tie it right back up, at 4-4.

Giolito was solid over the next few innings, and ended up going pretty deep, pitching seven innings with eight hits, four runs, and seven strikeouts. His ERA is now 4.92 — and he picked up the win.

On back-to-back nights, Vaughn delivered in a big way in the seventh inning. Abreu was also an important factor in this, and delivered the base-running and energy that the team needed. With one out and Joe Jiménez now in the game, Abreu hustled out a ball to Javier Báez at shortstop to a single. For a second, he grimaced in pain, and we all held our breaths. Next thing we knew, he challenged Báez again, tagging up and advancing to second base after a fly ball by Yasmani Grandal to deep center. The play would be reviewed, but would stand as safe.

That would end up paying off big time, as Andrew Vaughn singled down the middle for the 5-4 lead.

There have been almost too many times to count this year that Vaughn has came in clutch for this team. In fact, he is tied for second behind Aaron Judge for RBIs in the seventh inning or later, with 26.

Oh, and AJ Hinch was ejected from the game shortly after. It just gets better.

Reynaldo López brought some fire out in the eighth inning, striking out Haase to end the inning with a runner on first. His fastball velocity has been increasing as the summer wears on.

Pollock added a much-needed insurance run with a solo homer in the top of the ninth off of a first-pitch fastball from Andrew Chafin. Credits to Jason Benetti for calling it moments before it happened.

And of course, Liam Hendriks shut it down in the bottom of the ninth with a strikeout vs. Greene after allowing two runners on.

Wins at home are nice. Let’s keep doing it.

The South Siders will close out this series tomorrow afternoon and look for the sweep. Now just 2 ¹⁄₂ games back of the first place Cleveland Guardians, tomorrow will be important. Lance Lynn will be on the bump against lefty Tyler Alexander.

Everyone have a great rest of their Saturday night and get ready for the quick turnaround tomorrow!