The White Sox stumbled into Cleveland having allowed 30 runs over their previous three games.
Halfway into a four-game set at Progressive Field, they've allowed one run to the Indians over two.
Lucas Giolito threw a career-long 7⅓ innings, and the bullpen survived an eighth-inning scare to preserve the shutout the rest of the way. Coming on the heels of a successful night for Iván Nova, the Sox may need a series or two to fully understand whether they're dealing with better pitching or dreadful lineups, but hey, the American League has a few of those.
Giolito can only concern himself with the task at hand, and he handled it tonight. He allowed just three hits and three walks over those 7⅓ innings while striking out eight, and he did it with a breaking ball tied behind his back. He got over the 100-pitch mark on fastballs (67) and changeups (34) alone, with Statcast only seeing three curves and a slider.
One of those curves hung at Jason Kipnis' eyes and turned into a double to start the fourth inning, starting the only jam Giolito really faced. Six pitches later, he was out of it. Jose Ramirez flied out to right, with Kipnis tagging to third. Carlos Santana's popout to short couldn't score him, and neither could Carlos Gonzalez's lineout to left.
Giving up flyouts wasn't a bad strategy, because with the temperature in the 40s and a stiff wind blowing in, the ball wasn't traveling. Jose Abreu challenged that wind with a deep drive in the seventh, but what would've ordinarily been a two-run homer in the seventh inning died in front of the wall.
Instead, the Sox had to sweat it out. Jace Fry relieved Giolito with one out in the eighth as the top of the order approached for a fourth time, and he immediately had a sweat out a review for a 3-1 putout, as first base umpire Gabe Morales thought Fry missed the bag. He was half-right, because while Fry's original step was to the side of first, he ended up swiping it with his toe on a second effort before Mike Freeman's foot hit the bag.
That challenge loomed large when Francisco Lindor singled and Kipnis doubled to jeopardize the White Sox' lead. Fry loaded the bases on a four-pitch walk to Jose Ramirez, and they were only loaded because McCann blocked a few pitches in the dirt. Alex Colomé then came in to face Carlos Santana with no margin for error.
Tensions ran high that at-bat, so much so that Rick Renteria was thrown out by Marty Foster from 150 feet away for protesting a bad checked-swing call that evened the count at 1. Said count eventually ran full, but Renteria could see from the clubhouse that he got his strike back when Santana took a pitch below the zone. It should've been ball four, but Jerry Meals called it strike three, and Colomé was a quarter of the way to a four-out save.
The White Sox offense didn't do much against Jefry Rodrigruez, but it only had to get on the board to win. Yolmer Sánchez did so in the third, leading off with a double, moving to third on a Ryan Cordell bunt and scoring on a Yoan Moncada flare to left. Moncada was picked off to thwart any further damage.
The Sox had a chance to rattle Rodriguez in the fourth after a couple walks loaded the bases, but Tim Anderson couldn't force Rodriguez in the zone and tapped into a 1-2 fielder's choice for the second out, and they didn't convert.
Instead, the Sox only scored again in the sixth. Abreu hit the leadoff double that time, and after advancing to third on Yonder Alonso's grounder to first, he scored on McCann's single through the middle.
Bullet points:
*McCann had himself a night. Along with the two hits, the RBI, the work catching Giolito's longest outing and blocking Fry's errant pitches, he also gunned down Freeman at second to end the third on a SHOTHO.
*Charlie Tilson is 2-for-2 when it comes to successful starts. He reached base on a single and a walk, stole a base and made a diving catch in left for the second out of the ninth.
Record: 16-18 | Box score | Highlights
