The White Sox offense needed just about one turn through the lineup to get their bearings, so they just needed Dallas Keuchel to hold the line until the bats synced up.
Both delivered. Keuchel threw seven innings of one-run ball, while a lineup piled on the runs starting in the middle innings. The results was an 11-run margin that was tied for the third-most lopsided victory of the year.
Keuchel allowed just a Ramón Urías second-inning solo shot, although Anthony Santander came a couple millimeters away from a second homer in the fourth. The top of the right-center wall rejected his drive with enough force that the second-base umpire's initial call of a double was overruled by home plate umpire Manny Gonzalez, only to be overturned by a replay that showed the ball never cleared the wall.
Keuchel bore down and induced a pair of groundouts and a lineout to the left side to escape the inning, and that was characteristic of his effort. He scattered seven hits and a walk while striking out only three, but two of those three strikeouts stranded a runner generated by a Leury García error in the sixth. The guy with eight unearned tabs on his 2021 record avoided another slide, and then he closed out his night with a nine-pitch seventh.
Keuchel would've needed a calamity to blow the lead the White Sox eventually provided him. The White Sox generated 24 baserunners over nine innings -- 15 hits, eight walks and an HBP. Every starter hit safely, and seven of the nine reached at least twice. It's the kind of game where nobody minded the Sox stranding 13 runners, because chances are a third out was going to be recorded with traffic.
Seven of those hits went for extra bases, and homers by Gavin Sheets and Adam Engel didn't show up until the game was already in hand. The Sox had already induced plenty of mistakes from the Baltimore pitchers by steady pressure.
A two-out double by Brian Goodwin tied the game in the third, and an RBI single by José Abreu put the Sox ahead in the fifth inning, with Tim Anderson scoring both times. But the Sox secured the game in the sixth without doing much on their part. Andrew Vaughn and Sheets started the inning with walks to prompt Orioles manager Brandon Hyde to pull Cole Sulser from the game, and Dillon Tate wasn't any better. Seby Zavala spotted him an out by bunting the runners up a base, but Tate gave up a two-run double to Anderson, then issued three consecutive walks to force another runner home. Engel then cashed in another run with a sac fly that made it a 6-1 game, and everybody could breathe easier.
The rest of the game was reserved for stat padding. Sheets homered in front of family and friends in the seventh, followed by Zavala sneaking a double inside third base for his first hit of the year. Yoán Moncada drew a walk, and Abreu drove them both in with a double. Engel then added one more kick by belting a three-run homer with two outs in the ninth.
Bullet points:
*Keuchel closes out the first half 7-3 with a 4.25 ERA, which is fine, even with the unearned runs.
*Anderson scored three runs from the leadoff spot, while Engel drove in four runs, and Abreu added three RBIs himself.
*Michael Kopech pitched the eighth to get some work, and he completed overmatched the Orioles with three strikeouts on 15 pitches, 12 for strikes.
*Zavala struck out three times, but he got a hit, bunted successfully when asked, and caught a good performance, which is about all one could want from his starts. Keuchel offered encouraging words:
