If the White Sox score twice as many runs as they did the game before while allowing half as many, they should be in pretty good shape this season.
Coming off a rickety 5-2 victory on Saturday that counted like any other win, the White Sox put together their first authoritative performance of 2022 in the third and final game of the season-opening series.
Besides a couple of individual moments I'll highlight in the bullet points, it was hard to find a flaw. The White Sox once again scored runs early, followed by more runs late. Michael Kopech pitched four innings with increasing ease in an encouraging return to regular rotation work. The game started with the first of Tim Anderson's three hits, and it ended with 30-year-old rookie Tanner Banks closing the game out with a pair of scoreless frames in his unlikely MLB debut.
Kopech, Banks, and three pitchers in between combined to hold the Tigers to two hits and four walks. Kopech allowed both hits, including an RBI triple to Victor Reyes in the second inning that scored a Miguel Cabrera walk to cut the White Sox's early lead in half. Kopech dealt with a ton of deep counts early, and after he followed the Reyes triple with a four-pitch walk to Spencer Torkelson, Ethan Katz came out for a mound visit ...
... and everything changed. Kopech finished his afternoon by retiring his last seven batters on 26 pitches, and Kyle Crick, Matt Foster and Kendall Graveman ran that streak to 16 straight through the seventh.
Meanwhile, a White Sox offense that struck for first-inning runs in all three games kept applying pressure throughout.
Anderson, resuming leadoff duties after serving his two-game suspension, greeted Tarik Skubal by roping his first pitch to the left-field wall for a leadoff double. He took third on Luis Robert's signle, and after Robert stole second, both came home on a pair of productive outs.
Anderson led another two-run charge in the third by singling to center. Luis Robert replaced him after a fielder's choice, which was just as well since Robert was able to score all the way from first on José Abreu's double to the right-center alley. Abreu found his own way home by tagging up to third on an Andrew Vaughn flyout, then scoring when Jeimer Candelario couldn't come up with Josh Harrison's firm grounder to third.
Once more for good measure, Anderson led off the seventh with a double and scored on Eloy Jiménez's bloop single to center two batters later. Vaughn delivered the knockout blow with a three-run homer, and the Sox could coast the rest of the way.
The bullpen made life easy for itself, as Kyle Crick recorded a scoreless fifth on 12 pitches, followed by Foster's perfect sixth in nine pitches and Graveman throwing just seven in the seventh. Only Banks had to grind it out a little bit, ending the streak of consecutive batters retired with a walk to the first batter he faced. He rallied to strike out the side, then survived another two-out walk and a deep Cabrera flyout to come away with his ERA unscathed.
The win went to Crick since Kopech only completed four, but Kopech served the purpose well enough. He limited the damage to one run without his best work. The most room for improvement lies with his slider, which only got two whiffs and one called strike on 21 attempts. The command on that pitch sharpened over the last two innings, which helped compensate for a fastball that dipped toward 93 later in the game.
Bullet points:
*Danny Mendick contributed an RBI double in the fourth inning, although he broke for home on a wild pitch that didn't bounce away as far as he anticipated, and he was tagged out standing up.
*Eloy Jiménez and Robert collided in left center, and it looked like Jiménez was the one who didn't give way.
*Vaughn finished with four RBIs, and came away with six for the series despite only starting two of the games. Jiménez is right behind him with five.
*Reese McGuire was the only White Sox without a hit or a walk, but he did reach on an error. More importantly, he cut down Austin Meadows at second base on a pitch that bounced.
*Josh Harrison made his first start at third and made a ranging pick at the shortstop position, completing the play with a spinning throw to retire Tucker Barnhart.
*The White Sox struck out only 14 times over 117 plate appearances during the three games (12 percent). White Sox pitchers struck out 31 batters out of 107 (29 percent).
