Late heroics rescued the White Sox from bullpen blunders as the White Sox battled for their second straight win against Detroit.
Apart from a Yasmani Grandal homer, Tigers starter Spencer Turnbull had shut down the Sox bats through four innings. An injury to Turnbull allowed the White Sox to get into the Tigers’ pen early. Bad Tigers defense created a five-run 5th inning off Kyle Funkhouser and fueled the good guys’ offensive output.
Dallas Keuchel looked sharp, allowing just a one-earned run (2R) in his six innings of work, but despite only throwing 80 pitches, Tony La Russa made the decision to take him out. It turned out to be a tough decision for the White Sox, as the Tigers crushed Codi Heuer and Evan Marshall for six runs in the 7th to take the lead. Jonathan Schoop was a one-man wrecking crew for Detroit, going 4-4 and clubbing two homers. However, a game-tying homer from Yasmani Grandal and a walk-off single from Yermin Mercedes got the Sox the victory.
With the win, the Sox improve to 35-22 on the season and are now 22-9 at home.
W: Liam Hendriks (2-1) | L: Jose Cisnero (0-3)
Savant Leaders
Notable Performances
Yasmani Grandal: 2-2, 2 HR, 2 BB
The tides might be starting to turn for Yasmani, who has homered now 3 times in 2 games. Grandal’s propensity to draw walks has helped keep him afloat through early season struggles at the plate, but he’s been putting together much better at bats as of late. The power, however, has been there all year, and with his knee finally healthy, Yaz could be due for a big June.
Dallas Keuchel: 6 IP, 2R, 1ER, 5H, 1BB, 3K
Coming off a less-than-great outing against Baltimore on Saturday, Keuchel looked to rebound against one of the worst lineups in baseball. Outside of the RBI double by Jonathan Schoop, Keuchel was excellent, locating all his pitches pretty well and throwing lots of strikes. A Yoan Moncada error did allow an unearned run to score in the 3rd, but overall, Dallas did an excellent job of taming the Tigers. Were it not for an early hook and a bullpen implosion, Dallas would’ve earned the win tonight; instead, he gets a no-decision.
Nick Madrigal: 2-4, HR, RBI
I’m not one for superstition, but it’s worth noting that the last two times I have written the postgame recap, Nick Madrigal has homered. This one was a not-too-shabby 402 feet to left-center field and the first career homer at Guaranteed Rate Field for the former first-round pick. Tyler Alexander was the unfortunate soul who surrendered the homer, the second of Nick’s career.
Tim Anderson: 1-5, 2 RBI
After being retired fairly easily in his first two at-bats, Anderson came up with the bases loaded in the 5th and drilled a base hit back up the middle to give the Sox the lead. Anderson drove in runs for the second consecutive game as he looks to break out of the slump he’s been in for the past couple of weeks. TA heating up would mean great things for the Sox offense moving forward, as they could really use a sparkplug at the top of the order.
Yermin Mercedes: 1-for-4, RBI, BB
Have to include the guy who gave us the walk-off tonight. Mercedes broke a 0-for-25 slump with his walk-off hit tonight – hopefully this begins to turn the tides for him.
Player of the Game
Today’s player of the game honor has to go to Yasmani Grandal. Grandal was never retired in the ballgame, going 2-2 with 2 HRs and 2 walks, including a game-tying bomb in the 7th. This was the kind of game that Yaz was looking for to hopefully get his bat going. If Grandal can be a reliable offensive force, it makes the White Sox lineup even stronger than it already is.
Hopefully Yaz can carry his recent hot streak over into the rest of the weekend.
Next Game
The White Sox look to secure a series win against the Tigers on Saturday afternoon. Lucas Giolito takes the hill for the Sox against Detroit’s young lefty Tarik Skubal. First pitch is slated for 1:10pm CST and as always, the game will be broadcast on NBC Sports Chicago.
Larussa was supposed to be a big upgrade in terms of using the bull pen properly over the Sox’s previous manager. Again, last night we saw TLR again almost single handedly lose a ball game by leaving an ineffective pitcher, Marshall, in way too long. Had he replaced Marshal sooner, Detroit would not have scored the go ahead runs in that inning and there would have been a much easier victory for the Sox. TLR is obviously no longer performs like a HOF manager and is well past his prime in terms of managing a ball club effectively. He makes too many mistakes on an ongoing basis.