The White Sox chose Gavin Sheets' upside over Jake Lamb's major-league track record with their initial September roster additions earlier today, and it wasted no time materializing.
Sheets homered twice in his return to the big leagues, including a three-run shot that gave the lead the White Sox never relinquished. Rock-solid defense backed up a Carlos Rodón who could only go five, and a bullpen that needed Reynaldo López on his throw day and Liam Hendriks for a five-out save.
Still, a win's a win, a sweep's a sweep, and an off day's an off day. The Sox have won five of their last six, they took three of four against the Pirates on the season, and they're 22 games over .500 for the first time this season.
Sheets, serving as DH and batting eighth, made his mark on the game in the fourth after a frustrating third where the Sox had runners on second and third with one out and came away scoreless. Sheets made sure the White Sox wouldn't leave the fourth empty-handed. Leury García (who had a fine game in his own right) extended the inning with a two-out single that advanced Yasmani Grandal to second. Sheets came up to the plate looking for a fastball, fouling back a well-located Max Kranick high heater for strike one. The second fastball was poorly located, thigh high and over the middle of the plate. Sheets didn't get all of it, but he got enough of it to parachute it into the Pittsburgh bullpen for a 3-0 lead.
The White Sox led by multiple runs the rest of the game, although it never quite felt secure either. Rodón's night leaned heavily on the word "only." He topped out at 96. He threw 77 pitches. He got just 10 swinging strikes. He still limited the damage to just a run on five hits and a walk over five innings with five strikeouts, but fine defense helped his cause.
In the top of the fourth, García ranged to his left and threw across his body to César Hernández, whose quick exchange completed a highlight-reel 6-4-3 double play. An inning later, Rodón gave up three singles for the one run he allowed, but José Abreu prevented a fourth by smothering a hard grounder by Kevin Newman.
The difference in defense was apparent. In the bottom of the fifth, the White Sox got a run back because Newman threw softly yet wildly to first on an extremely poor 3-6-1 attempt, which allowed a run to score. García tacked on another with a double to left before the inning ended for a 5-1 lead.
After Aaron Bummer yielded a solo homer to Anthony Alford in the seventh, and one of Ryan Tepera's two runners came around to score on Hendriks' watch in the top of the eighth to make it a 5-3 game, Gavin Sheets came through with his second homer. It was made possible because Cole Tucker couldn't complete a sliding catch in foul territory down the right field line, and also because Duane Underwood couldn't get him out with any of his five 0-2 pitches. Sheets fought off two curveballs and a changeup, and when Sheets saw a fastball down the middle on the seventh pitch, he pumped it out to center for the game's final run.
He finished the night 2-for-3 with four RBIs, also reaching base on an HBP. He was effectively the cleanup man for the part of the order that started with Yasmani Grandal, who reached base thrice and scored twice himself. García's pair of two-out hits also loomed large.
Bullet points:
*Yoán Moncada had a rough night at the plate with a double play and an unproductive groundout with a runner on third, but he made a tough catch well into foul territory among a few nifty plays.
*Eloy Jiménez flagged down a liner to the gap.
*José Abreu earned his 100th career HBP by taking a curveball to the side of his lower leg.
*López is still on track to start on Saturday, as he only threw nine pitches during a 1-2-3 sixth. He was needed because Tony La Russa said Craig Kimbrel was unavailable for a physical reason that didn't have to do with his arm.
*Cleveland won because Kansas City couldn't score one run with the bases loaded and nobody out in the 10th, so the White Sox's lead in the AL Central is still 10, but their magic number is down to 21.
