The White Sox were finally to return to three games above .500 since April 17, courtesy of their first sweep since the successful trip to San Francisco at the start of July.
The rotation produced another quality start, the lineup delivered another persistent effort, and consequently, the Sox were able to dispatch one of baseball's worst teams without an extraordinary effort.
As was the case with Lucas Giolito on Saturday, the White Sox had to erase an early deficit, but they had that recent history to lean upon. Lance Lynn fell behind 2-0 in the third inning due to a combination of unflattering defense and wonky luck -- an infield single that Lenyn Sosa couldn't handle, a double-hit Riley Greene single, Adam Engel and Andrew Vaughn almost colliding on a Javier Báez RBI single -- but there wasn't particular reason to panic assuming the offense could figure out Tyler Alexander.
Slowly but surely, they did, and AJ Pollock was at the center of it. He homered off Tyler Alexander in the third, then started the go-ahead fifth inning with a leadoff double. Eloy Jiménez doubled him home two batters later to tie the game at 2, and a José Abreu singled moved Jiménez to third.
Andrew Vaughn then hit a grounder to the hole on the left side, but Báez gloved it and made an on-target throw to second. Willi Castro then fired to first with time to get Vaughn by two steps, and while it wasn't a perfect throw, Kody Clemens still should've come up with it. Instead, it rattled in and out of the edge of his mitt, and the go-ahead run crossed the plate.
Vaughn then capped off the fine weekend for himself in more authoritative fashion with a solo shot off Wily Peralta in the eighth inning. Josh Harrison followed with a single, then scored all the way from first on Seby Zavala's one-out double when Eric Haase slipped and booted the ball in left.
The insurance runs proved welcome when Kendall Graveman, with Liam Hendriks saving the first two games of this weekend, gave up a solo shot to Harold Castro with one out in the ninth. The tying run eventually came to the plate, but he got Clemens to bounce out to first to lock down his sixth save in seven real opportunities.
(The official count says he's 6-for-11 in save opportunities, but four of those "blown saves" occurred before the ninth inning in games he wouldn't have been expected to close out.)
Graveman's brief stumble interrupted what was otherwise an easy coast to the finish line after the clumsy third inning. Lynn allowed just one single over his remaining three innings, and he erased it with another strong double play started by Yoán Moncada, who handled a hot hop from Akil Baddoo and started a 5-6-3.
Lynn completed six innings on just 88 pitches, with the two runs allowed on five hits. He issued no walks, kept the ball in the park, and struck out seven.
Jimmy Lambert took it up a notch, striking out all four batters he faced. Jake Diekman gave up a single to his first batter, but then struck out the other two batters in the eighth.
All in all, White Sox pitchers struck out 14 batters without a walk, or a hit batter that matter. It's the seventh time that's happened in franchise history, but the third time since May 2021, to give you an idea of how much the environment has affected this stat.
Bullet points:
*Adam Engel was the only member of the lineup who failed to reach safely, but he did steal a base when he was on.
*The Guardians won, so the Sox still trail by 2.5 games.
*The White Sox finished the 19-game stretch against under-.500 teams 11-8. Now a four-game set against the Astros looms.
