On the 40th anniversary of Steve Stone's broadcast debut, it's only fitting that the White Sox beat the Dodgers 4-0.
And they did it in fitting fashion for the 2022 White Sox, in the sense that they made Michael Kopech have to throw six of his best innings of the season before the offense, aided by a few tactical errors by Dave Roberts, finally arrived for a crooked number that made the final three innings simple.
Kopech picked up his second win of the season, and he earned every bit of it. He allowed one hit and one walk over six innings while striking out eight. When he wasn't sending hitters back to the dugout after a K, he was getting lazy flyouts.
He only faced two runners in scoring position, both times by his own doing. In the third, he issued a four-pitch walk to Gavin Lux with two outs for his first baserunner of the game. Lux stole second, but Kopech survived an eight-pitch battle against Mookie Betts thanks to José Abreu, who made a not-easy catch by the Dodger dugout.
An inning later, Will Smith broke up the no-hitter with a two-out single. On a 2-2 count to Justin Turner, Kopech re-set in the stretch for no real reason, and Smith advanced to second on the balk. No worries -- another pop foul, and another basket catch by Abreu killed that threat as quickly as it materialized.
He ended his night retiring the last seven he faced, and that's when the White Sox went to work.
Sure, they could've started an inning earlier, because they had the bases loaded with one out, but Mitch White rallied to strike out Reese McGuire and Josh Harrison.
With a little help from the boys in blue, the Sox struck for four in the sixth. Danny Mendick reached with one of his classic BABIP singles, a two-hopper placed too far from Freddie Freeman for clean fielding. Andrew Vaughn and Luis Robert flied out, after which Abreu came to the plate.
During the Playback Watch Party, we all noticed that the Dodgers were shifting Abreu unusually aggressively, with three fielders on the left side of the infield. Abreu simply inside-outed a grounder at 62.9 mph and moved Mendick to third.
Perhaps the Dodgers just didn't want Abreu to access the kind of power that could result in two runs, but then Roberts lifted the right-handed Phil Bickford for a lefty in David Price to face Gavin Sheets.
Again, in real time, we questioned why Roberts prioritized matching up against Sheets when it simply gave Tony La Russa his choice of better right-handed bats to plug into the game. La Russa chose AJ Pollock, and Pollock delivered a double inside the right-field line that scored both runners for the game's first two runs.
And it continued to pay dividends, because Jake Burger came to the plate against a lefty and smashed a double to left to score Pollock. And when the Dodgers used the open base to intentionally walk Yoán Moncada in order to bring Reese McGuire to the plate, McGuire made up for the strikeout an inning earlier by lofting a single over shortstop for a 4-0 lead.
From that point on, the White Sox had their best arms to get through the rest of the game, and great infield defense helped them through it. Reynaldo López erased a leadoff runner with a 6-4-3 double play, which made the two-out single and subsequent two-out walk by Aaron Bummer easier to stomach.
In the eighth, Mendick juggled a tricky hop and still managed to take it to the bag for a 6-3 double play that pleased Kendall Graveman. Liam Hendriks worked around a leadoff walk to end it, even though he didn't get the save for it.
Bullet points:
*Kopech lowered his ERA back below 2.00 (1.94). The White Sox are .500 in his starts (5-5). In three starts against the Yankees and Dodgers, he's allowed a total of three hits over 19 innings.
*Mendick once again batted leadoff, and his single started the whole sixth inning thing, so it's working well enough.
*Pollock yielded a single to Betts in the eight inning with an unsteady read, which is the kind of play that's going to sink his metrics further.
*The White Sox scored their four runs off Price over the course of four pitches. Pollock and Burger both doubled on first pitches, and McGuire's single was on an 0-1 count.
*The Sox are now four games back of Minnesota, which lost to the Yankees. They're also now in second place by one winning percentage point, as Cleveland split their doubleheader against Texas.
