The White Sox offense absorbed the lesson from the opener of this series, when an admirable effort by a piecemeal pitching plan Monday night went by the boards because it could only offer Tyler Alexander and friends one run of support.
With Yoendrys Gómez returning to the White Sox from Charlotte and thrust into Jonathan Cannon's rotation spot, the Sox hitters found a way to turn the tables on Jack Flaherty and give their beleaguered pitching staff a welcome margin for error. Gomez didn't need it, as he threw five innings of one-run, one-hit ball, but it came in handy for the bullpen when the game took a chaotic turn at the halfway point.
"When we make the little things happen, take good at-bats, play good defense, the game is gonna take care of itself," said Miguel Vargas, who returned to the lineup after a minimum 10-day stint on the IL.
Flaherty had limited the White Sox to a pair of opposite-field singles and a walk through four innings, during which the Tigers were able to stake a 1-0 lead on a leadoff HBP that came around to score on a double and a sac fly.
But Flaherty didn't make it out of the fifth. He was greeted with a parade of unfortunate singles -- a Kyle Teel line drive that Gleyber Torres could've caught with better timing on his leap, an Edgar Quero single that fell in front of a diving Wenceel Perez, a perfectly placed flare off the end of Curtis Mead's bat on a well-located full-count slider, a Mike Tauchman inside-out single. Mead's tied the game at 1, and Tauchman's loaded the bases for the heart of the White Sox order.
With an assist from Laz Diaz's wide-load strike zone, Flaherty found footing against Lenyn Sosa. A 1-0 slider well off the outside corner was called a strike, compelling Sosa to swing over two sliders similarly located. Flaherty then followed the instruction manual against Colson Montgomery by getting him to swing over two curves below the zone.
But unlike the Sosa at-bat, he stopped being able to execute the same pitch the same way. A third curve bounced in the dirt, and a fourth curve stayed up. On its own, it would've been a finely thrown backdoor curveball. In the sequence, it was a mistake relative to the other pitches, and Montgomery hooked it past a diving Torres for a two-run single that gave the Sox a 3-1 lead.
"Great adjustment there," Will Venable said. "Might have hung it, but he was able to get through that at-bat and get a pitch and not miss it. That’s what it’s going to take, those in at-bat adjustments."
Once Luis Robert Jr. dropped an opposite-field duck snort in front of Kerry Carpenter in right for another run, A.J. Hinch decided that six singles was enough, and went to his bullpen.
Brant Hurter couldn't quite close the door, giving up a pair of two-out walks, including one to Teel that brought home a fifth run. That was the first of a few occasions where the Sox tacked on runs, and that proved vital to the viewing experience when they experienced their own misfortune later in the game.
The Sox extended their lead to 6-1 thanks to a Codi Heuer throwing error and a bases-loaded walk to Andrew Benintendi through six, which made it less stressful when Luis Robert Jr. deflected Dillon Dingler's two-run homer over the fence in what appeared to be a likely chance to rob it. The Tigers then threatened to add more when Riley Greene hit a grounder to the left side with two on and two out, but Montgomery ranged to his right and fired an on-target laser to Lenyn Sosa, who covered the bag before Torres' foot arrived for the final out.
Edgar Quero made up for one of the runs with a solo shot off Heuer in the top of the seventh, and then drove in two more with a single off another old friend, Tommy Kahnle, in the eighth. Thus, when Mike Vasil gave up a three-run shot to Colt Keith in the ninth, it only cut a six-run lead in half.
"You guys can see after the All-Star break we have been crushing the ball, hitting a lot of homers, extra bases, playing really good baseball," Quero said. "Young players coming in hungry, we are going to play hard and we are going to win. That’s what I see right now.
Bullet points:
*Gómez was outstanding, generating 16 whiffs and seven strikeouts over five innings and 89 pitches. He threw fastballs less than half the time, but the fastballs he did throw were plenty effective in setting up the rest of his arsenal.
"It was special because it was my first start in the majors and I'm just glad that the organization gave me the chance and also because I was able to take advantage of it," Gómez said via interpreter. He learned on Monday that he was starting on Tuesday.
*Vasil's bid for a three-inning save was spoiled by Diaz, who missed a 1-2 curveball up in the zone for what should've been the final pitch of the game. Vasil ended up walking Greene, and with Vasil at 57 pitches, Will Venable went to Jordan Leasure before the tying run came to the plate. Leasure struck out Spencer Torkelson on five pitches. Diaz's ump scorecard might be a sight to behold.
*Dingler benefited from three different White Sox mistakes. Along with Robert failing to take away his home run in the seventh, he reached on a Montgomery error in the fifth, and then led off the ninth by drawing catcher interference from Teel. That was the unearned run on Vasil's tab.
*Mead made his first start at third base and made a fine play to deprive Jahmai Jones of an infield single, showing patience with a hop and compensating with a strong throw.
*The start of the game was delayed 50 minutes by rain.
