The last time the White Sox faced Brady Singer -- you have to think all the way back to one week ago -- the game was less notable for how it started than how it ended. A Gregory Santos walk-off balk overshadowed a fair amount of good that came before, as the White Sox ambushed Singer for six runs over the first three innings, staking Dylan Cease to a lead the Sox did not end up holding.
The front end of today's doubleheader corrected for that. By the time Singer figured out the strike zone, he trailed 5-0, and this time Cease, Santos and everybody in between allowed it to stand.
The White Sox batted through in the first inning, immediately loading the bases with a single and two walks, and then delivering three bases-loaded hits. Eloy Jiménez's infield single put them on the board, Yoán Moncada's sharp single through the right side scored another, and after Andrew Vaughn struck out to put the Royals within a ground ball of escaping, Gavin Sheets' ground ball skipped through the middle and into center field for two more runs that made it 4-0. Elvis Andrus then made it 5-0 with another grounder that was only good enough to get the force at second.
Cease took it from there, and he didn't trip with it. He instead struck out eight batters over 5⅓ innings, and he didn't issue a walk until his penultimate batter of the game.
That was good enough to limit the Royals to one run, and he probably should've been able to escape unscored upon. With nobody out in the fourth, Cease got Salvador Pérez to hit a bouncer to third with a runner on first. That runner on first happened to be Bobby Witt Jr., whose speed required Yoán Moncada to make a quick throw to second. That rushed throw took Andrus off the bag, and Andrus could only get the out at first. Instead of two outs and nobody on, there was one out and one on, and Witt ended up scoring on Edward Oliveras' two-out double that made it 5-1.
If there's one knock on Cease, it's that he threw 102 pitches over 5⅓ despite the lack of walks, but the bullpen was able to carry it the rest of the way. Bryan Shaw got the game through seven, and when Lane Ramsey ran into some issues in the eighth inning, Santos stranded his two runners with one pitch, then pitched a perfect ninth to atone for last week's mistake.
Singer recovered from his terrible first inning and lasted as long as Cease, which at least spared the Kansas City bullpen for the doubleheader.
Bullet points:
*The Sox tacked on an insurance run in the sixth when Andrew Vaughn led off with a double and scored on Andrus' single.
*Luis Robert Jr. nice running catch in the left-center gap to take extra bases away from Perez in the first inning.
*Chris Johnson was ejected for protesting Jeremie Rehak's strike zone in the sixth inning.
