When Carlos Rodon feels good about all his pitches, everybody feels good about watching the White Sox.
Rodon pitched into the eighth to power the Sox to a shutout over the Cardinals that also snapped a six-game losing streak. He allowed just three hits and two walks over 7⅓ innings, striking out seven. He dictated the action by throwing 66 strikes, and by throwing his changeup (23 times) almost as often as his slider (23).
It was the kind of effort that allowed the Sox to win by multiple runs without their best effort. For instance, Yoan Moncada made a couple of mistakes that could have undermined other nights.
In the first, Moncada took advantage of Yadier Molina botching a pop-up to draw a leadoff walk, then took second on Yolmer Sanchez's infield single. Jose Abreu followed by hitting a soft liner to left. Moncada put his head down and dug toward home, assuming the liner was more of the gorked varietyo that would plot behind shortstop. Instead, it carried all the way to Marcel Ozuna in left, who flipped the ball to second for the inning-shorting double play. Weaver was on the ropes with 20 pitches thrown before his first out, but he ended up throwing six innings of one-run ball.
Still, Rodon kept the Cardinals off the board until the Sox could summon another rally. The Sox finally got that run in the fifth, as Leury Garcia walked, took third on Omar Narvaez's single to center and scored on Tim Anderson's groundout.
Moncada made a more critical mistake in the eighth inning. With a runner on first and one out, Rodon got a fairly tailor-made grounder to Moncada's right. It should've been a backhand stab in flip, but the ball deflected off his glove and into center field, putting runners on the corners with still just one out. Rodon compounded problems by walking lefty Matt Carpenter on four pitches, putting the tying run on base.
But because he went so deep into the game, Rick Renteria only had to use his good relievers. Juan Minaya came in and struck out Tommy Pham for the second out, and Joakim Soria came in to face Jose Martinez. Soria schooled him, striking him out on two elevated fastballs and a slider well out of the zone.
Watching that crisis was a little easier since the Sox built a cushion in thee seventh, and Narvaez again played a big part. He shot a single to left with two outs off Mike Mayers, then chugged all the way home on Anderson's double to the left-field corner. Anderson scored because Charlie Tilson had another RBI single against his former team, this time dropping a single into the triangle behind second base.
And for what it's worth, Moncada at least contributed a highlight to go along with his lowlights. In the eighth inning, he greeted Jordan Hicks by roping a 102-mph fastball into the right center gap for a standup triple, then scored two batters later on Abreu's chopper.
Bullet points:
*Tilson was picked off by Molina after his RBI single.
*Abreu, Daniel Palka and Matt Davidson went 0-for-11 with five strikeouts in the middle of the order.
*Sanchez made a strong throw behind the bag, and Abreu had one of the longer 3-1 feeds after playing a hot one-hopper off his body.
Record: 31-61 | Box score
