The White Sox eliminated the need for magic number monitoring in the first game of this five-game set, but in a world where the AL Central's top two teams were running neck-and-neck, this season series would have presented them an edge in any tiebreaker scenario.
The White Sox jumped on Triston McKenzie early, and a strong six innings from Lucas Giolito made it hold up. The White Sox took three of five games from Cleveland in the final meeting of the Indians era.
Like Lance Lynn, Giolito reached his goal of six innings. Unlike Lynn, he did it in much smoother form. He allowed just five hits and a walk over six scoreless innings while striking out six. He threw 62 of 100 pitches for strikes, and his slider did a lot of the heavy lifting. He didn't get a single whiff on his 21 changeups, but he got five swinging strikes on 35 sliders, along with four called strikes and six balls in play, none of which were smoked.
After stranding a Myles Straw leadoff double to open the game, he entertained very little drama afterward, even though he didn't record a single 1-2-3 inning. He had a chance in the fifth, but Leury García couldn't handle Straw's firm-but-routine grounder with two outs. Like Lynn, the sixth inning was probably his toughest, but he ended up stranding two runners with a broken-bat lineout.
Tony La Russa didn't have to worry too much about Giolito's leash thanks to the early offense. The White Sox eliminated the possibility of a shutout in the first inning when Tim Anderson started the game with a walk and came home two singles later for a 1-0 lead.
In the third, García opened the inning with a double, after which the Sox loaded the bases on walks by José Abreu and Yasmani Grandal. Eloy Jiménez then roped a forehand winner into left field to score two, and provide White Sox pitchers all the runs they needed.
Michael Kopech maybe made it a little tenser than necessary, giving up a double and two singles to open the seventh. He left after getting Amed Rosario to fly out, and Garrett Crochet shut the door with a double play ball, at least after a review overturned the original safe call at first. Craig Kimbrel gave up an opposite-field wall-scraping homer in the eighth, but that just generated a 36th save possibility for Liam Hendriks, who converted.
A couple of insurance runs reduced the sweating. Andrew Vaughn singled to start the sixth, moved to second on a Billy Hamilton bunt and scored on García's single to center. And after Kopech gave up the run in the seventh, Hamilton answered with his legs. He led off the eighth with a single, took third on Tim Anderson's single, then stole home after Cleveland threw through on Tim Anderson's attempt at second. Anderson got into a pickle until Bobby Bradley made the ill-advised throw to third. The throw across the diamond provided Hamilton all the time he needed to break for home and beat the throw via third. It was the first time a White Sox player stole home since Gordon Beckham in 2013, and Anderson got the swipe as well.
Bullet points:
*The White Sox won the rubber match of the season series, which ended up 10-9 in Chicago's favor.
*Yasmani Grandal went 3-for-4 with a walk in the middle of the order.
*Every White Sox player had a hit, but García had the only extra-base hit, which is how they stranded 13 despite going 4-for-14 with runners in scoring position.
