The White Sox see Andrew Vaughn as a difference-maker, a leader even. Ideally, you'd like to see it manifest in ways that doesn't involve pulling Tim Anderson off the field after being on the losing end of a brawl.
Tonight was a good start toward that end, because Vaughn made the difference on both sides of the ball.
At the plate, he hit a two-run homer off Gerrit Cole in the second inning. In the field, he saved three runs with a diving stop on a Jake Bauers shot inside the first-base line, beating Bauers to the base with a slide to strand the bases loaded.
The White Sox had to strand a lot of Yankees over the course of the evening, as Dylan Cease experienced control issues all night long, and the untested bullpen had to survive some singles. New York loaded the bases with fewer than two outs on three occasions, and they only came away with one measly sac fly.
Cease carried a no-hitter into the sixth inning, but that's because he walked seven over 5⅓. He started the second with three straight walks, but recovered with two shallow flyouts to Andrew Benintendi before ending the inning with an athletic spinning throw on a Bauers swinging bunt.
The Sox then exacerbated the Bombers' frustration when Vaughn followed a Yoán Moncada walk by golfing a down-and-in fastball over the wall left of center field to put the Sox ahead 2-0 in the top of the second.
Cease didn't enjoy a 1-2-3 inning until the fifth, but that's just as he was approaching the 100-pitch mark. Charlie Montoyo lifted him after DJ LeMahieu broke up the no-hit bid with a one-out single in the sixth, after which Brent Honeywell made his White Sox debut.
Honeywell gave up two more singles to load the bases, but although Aaron Boone pinch-hit Isiah Kiner-Falefa for Ben Rortvedt, it resulted in the third too-shallow bases-loaded fly for the second out. A batter later, Bauers pulled a 100.2-mph rocket down the line, but Vaughn hit the dirt to stop it, got to his feet to race Bauers to the bag, then won the race with a feet-first slide to end the jam.
It wasn't until the Yankees loaded the bases for a third time, when Lane Ramsey gave up two singles and a walk to start the seventh, that they actually crossed the plate. McKinney hit a sac fly that made it a 2-1 game while putting runners on the corners, but Ramsey took advantage of Laz Diaz's wide strike zone to freeze LeMahieu for the second out, before getting Harrison Bader to chase a slider for strike and out three.
The White Sox then put the game away for good in the eighth. Gavin Sheets and Elvis Andrus led off with singles to right to chase Cole from the game, after which old friend Tommy Kahnle entered to face fellow Capital Region native Zach Remillard. La Salle Institute's Remillard bunted, as he's inclined to do in such situations, but Shaker High's Kahnle mishandled the ball and couldn't get any outs.
Then the White Sox showed how to capitalize with the bases loaded. Benintendi hit a sac fly to make it a 3-1 game, and Robert shot a double into the right-field corner for two more. Kahnle came off the mound cursing up a storm and flipping gum containers in the dugout, a symbol of a Yankees season that matches the White Sox's in terms of relative frustration, if not ineptitude.
Bullet points:
*Remillard entered the game for Tim Anderson, who started at shortstop and led off, but exited after taking a Cole fastball to the forearm. Depending on the severity of the bruise, this might be a good time for him to drop the appeal on his six-game suspension.
*Bryan Shaw became the ninth White Sox pitcher to record a save this season, as he pitched the final two innings.
*Robert now has 30 doubles to go along with his 30 homers.
*Cease finished an unusual line: 5.1 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 7 BB, 6 K.
Dylan Cease is the first White Sox pitcher to walk 7 and not allow a run since Dan Wright 8/6/2001 (6.1 IP, H, 7 BB)
— Christopher Kamka (@ckamka) August 8, 2023
I was at the park for that Danny Wright start, and there was no buzz about his no-hit bid because of all the walks. When he gave up his first hit to the final batter he faced, the crowd was already resigned to it.
*Boone was ejected by Diaz after frustration with the wide zone boiled over. He got his money's worth.
