On one hand, the White Sox should treat Vince Velasquez victories as found money.
On the other, when the game sets up in such a fashion that Luis Robert can take charge of the action, it's hard to call it a lucky day.
In the third inning, Robert took away multiple bases (and runs) with a leaping catch at the wall in center. In the sixth, he crushed a rolling Matt Brash breaking ball several rows deep to the opposite alley for the White Sox's first lead of the game. In the eighth, he reached on a walk, stole two bases and scored when Eloy Jiménez beat out a potential double-play ball for an insurance run Liam Hendriks ended up using.
Robert's feats aside, little else looked easy, but the White Sox still came away with a victory in the home opener in front of a sold-out Guaranteed Rate Field.
On a different day, Velasquez might've been on the hook for the loss. He walked more batters (three) than he struck out (two), gave up a solo shot to Eugenio Suárez, and needed just about every foot of the field just right of center to keep Jesse Winker in the park courtesy of Robert.
However it happened, Velasquez allowed just the one run over four innings, throwing 36 of 62 pitches for strikes. He threw five different kinds of pitches, none of which seemed to baffle the Mariners, but it got the job done.
Brash took the loss in his MLB debut despite out-pitching his counterpart. He induced a lot of awkward swings on his sharp knuckle curve, and got through five innings with just one run on his tab. It should've been unearned, as J.P. Crawford booted Tim Anderson's routine double-play ball, which scored Josh Harrison to tie the game at 1 after three.
He threw 51 knuckle curves out of 85, including three consecutive ones to Robert in their third head-to-head battle of the afternoon. He got ahead 0-2 on two fastballs, the second of which grazed the knob of Robert's bat up and in. He then tried to put him away with three straight breakers, but the first two darted well out of the zone, while the third split the plate. Robert wasn't sitting on it, but he had the time hold up with his hands and drive the ball out of the park to right center, giving the White Sox a 2-1 lead.
Robert then made it 3-1 largely by himself in the eighth. He drew a walk off Diego Castillo and stole second on the first pitch to José Abreu. After Abreu walked, Robert swiped third with Yasmani Grandal at the plate. Grandal couldn't drive him in, popping out in foul territory, but Jiménez's tapper to short was slow enough for a hustling Jiménez to beat it out.
That run turned out to be necessary, as Liam Hendriks scuffled for the second time in two save attempts. He gave up three singles around two strikeouts that made it a one-run game, including a breaking ball that wasn't that effective. He switched back to heat against Mitch Haniger and struck him out on three pitches for his first save of the season, although his ERA remains 13.50.
Bullet points:
*Jiménez took the stress off Reynaldo López in similar fashion to Robert with Velasquez, making a leaping catch at the wall to rob Luis Torrens of extra bases with nobody on in the seventh.)
*Reese McGuire had another nice game, going 2-for-3 at the plate and stealing a pair of strikeouts on pitches off the plate.
*Leury García is still hitless for the season after going 0-for-3 with a strikeout, and he dropped the ball on a double-play turn to extend an inning with Bennett Sousa on the mound.
