White Sox come from behind the Birds, 10-5

As a general rule, spotting a 4-0 lead in the first inning to the best team in your league is not a desirable strategy. But if it works, it works, and it did for the White Sox this afternoon.

Dylan Cease was very much Bad Dylan at the start. The culprit was his breaking stuff, which the Orioles were sitting on, ceding four hits and four runs in the first inning — an inning he only escaped thanks to a baserunning blunder. But then the Sox went deep, tying the game in the second on two-run shots by Andrew Vaughn and Oscar Colás, the latter being by far the more impressive, at 108.7 mph and 421 feet.

The White Sox weren’t done with Orioles starter Kyle Gibson, who wasn’t getting the calls near the bottom of the zone on his sinker and started leaving everything up and very hittable. And get hit hard, he did.

In the third inning, Luis Robert Jr. made it 5-4 with his 35th dinger, and then the Sox scored two more on an Eloy Jiménez double — second of his four hits on the day — a Vaughn two-bagger, and an Elvis Andrus single.

The Sox added their final runs in the sixth when Tim Anderson knocked in Andrus and Colás on a Little League triple, which was really a single that Cedric Mullins just waved at as it went by, but official scorers are scared of their shadows and anything else that moves these days, so triple it officially was ... well, see for yourself.

Andrew Benintendi’s ensuing RBI double made it 10-5, there to remain, as the Sox racked up 15 hits and even managed to take three walks.

Cease, meanwhile, recovered enough from the 40 pitches in that first inning to last six on 109 tosses, the only further damage on an Anthony Santander solo wall-scraper. For the most part, he made the recovery by trading in the junk for the heater.

More amazingly, the bullpen, which had completely collapsed Tuesday, put in three scoreless innings, two of them by Jimmy Lambert. The only threat came with two hits against Gregory Santos in the ninth, but pinch-hitter Adley Rutschman was kind enough to hit into a double play to end the game.

The victory sidesteps the sweep and raises the White Sox record to 53-81, which means with just 28 more wins in a row, they can match last year’s .500. After an off-day tomorrow, they host the Tigers for three.

Six Pack of Stats

By Melissa Sage-Bollenbach

FanGraphs

Pressure Play
With one on and no one out in the bottom of the fifth, Anthony Santander had a chance to do some damage. Unfortunately for the O’s, he popped out to second with the Sox leading 7-5 and landed himself a 2.14 LI.

Pressure Cooker
Ryan O’Hearn is having himself a terrific season, but he couldn’t beat the heat today. He struck out twice and only had a single, going 1-for-4 under 1.18 pLI for the day.

Top Play
Oscar Colás has improved over his last seven games, increasing his average to .250. Today, he hit his fourth dinger and went 2-for-4 in the win with a 18% WPA.

Top Performer
Colás gets the blue ribbon today, with his 19.2% WPA.

Hardest Hit
Eloy Jiménez, who went 4-for-5, smoked a 110.1 mph single to right field in the top of the eighth.

Weakest Contact
Jorge Mateo dribbled a fourth-inning single at 59.9 mph.

Luckiest Hit
Luis Robert Jr.’s single on a ground ball past the third baseman only had a .070 xBA.

Toughest Out
Lenyn Sosa’s 85 mph line out to right field had a .650 xBA.

Longest Hit
There were four homers in this game, and Oscar’s second-inning oppo taco took the prize, going 421 feet to right-center field.

Magic Number: 4
La Pantera has a four-game hitting streak where he’s gotten at least two hits per game. He is also the fourth Sox player in history to hit 35 home runs and steal 15 bases.