White Sox 5, Orioles 3: A dozen singles will do

Bullet-point recap, as I joined this game in progress:

*If the White Sox's lack of power is going to be laughable, credit them for leaning into the joke until it was funny. The White Sox had 12 hits, all of them singles, but the Sox bunched them up effectively enough for five runs.

*Gavin Sheets delivered two of them with the bases loaded. In the first inning, he shoved a high Spenser Watkins cutter back through the middle to give the Sox their second 2-0 first-inning lead in as many days.

*When it looked like the Sox once again stalled at that number, Sheets came through with one of his patented shift-thwarting singles against lefty Keegan Akin. Brandon Hyde made the right move by bringing in the lefty to face Sheets, what with Eloy Jiménez unable to play due to the bruised elbow, but Sheets managed to roll his grounder just far enough away from shortstop Jorge Mateo to beat the long throw to first.

(Mateo should've gone to third to end the inning, because Andrew Vaughn would've been out by 20 feet, but Mateo must've not plotted out that move as a possibility.)

*Lucas Giolito was the best current version of Lucas Giolito he could be, and that was good enough to win rather comfortably by current White Sox standards. He only struck out three, but he only gave up three hits and a walk over his first six innings. His fastball still averaged just below 93, but it seemed to have the top-of-the-zone hop it needed for attacking purposes, and whatever changeups and sliders he didn't throw well missed in good locations.

*Giolito's only trouble through six came when Adley Rutschman led off the fourth with a double off the right field wall. He scored on a pair of productive outs that cut the lead to 2-1, but he got out of the inning on just eight more pitches, so he avoided the big slog inning that derailed previous attempts at quality starts.

*Then Giolito started the seventh because he was barely past 80 pitches, and Sheets' infield single doubled his cushion. He gave up a leadoff single to Ryan Mountcastle, then walked Ramon Urias on five pitches to end his game, so he had to watch the rest of the inning nervously from the dugout.

*Kendall Graveman made everybody nervous when he immediately loaded the bases with a four-pitch walk to Rougned Odor of all people. One pitch later, he was out of the inning thanks to Yoán Moncada, who made a diving stop on Jorge Mateo's chopper down the line, slapped third base with his bare hand for the force, then flung the ball across the diamond for a supremely clutch 5-3 double play.

*The Orioles ended up scoring a couple more runs, but on a two-run Austin Hays blast off Liam Hendriks in a non-save situation.

*The Sox scored two more runs before them on a five-single inning. Only Seby Zavala's qualified as a hard-hit ball -- 97 mph through the middle -- but in classic White Sox fashion, it couldn't score Romy Gonzalez because he broke back toward second when no defender was near it.

*Seby Zavala also had some of his trademarked adventures around second base. He also broke back on a sharp Luis Robert single past shortstop the inning before, but he either had to go boldly toward third or retreat in order to avoid being hit by the batted ball, so he chose the conservative route. The weirder one was when he went four steps toward third on Andrew Vaughn's lineout to center. He would've been doubled off had Cedric Mullins made an accurate throw, but it was well off.

*Vaughn started at first and made a couple of nice plays, including a 3-6 force at second and a diving catch on a liner.

*Cleveland won and Minnesota lost, so the White Sox pulled back into a tie with the Twins, four games out of first place.

*Fun fact from Chris Kamka:

Record: 63-61 | Box score | Statcast