White Sox 8, Tigers 4: Anderson and Abreu a dynamic duo

When Hector Santiago gave up a two-run homer in the first inning, a continuation of the White Sox and Tigers’ first four meetings of the season appeared to be in order.

Instead, it was the White Sox whose long suit was the long ball.

Led by monster games from Tim Anderson and Jose Abreu, the White Sox launched four homers against Francisco Liriano and the Tigers bullpen. As a result, they’re no longer winless against Ron Gardenhire on the season.

Anderson had a hand in that 2-0 deficit, as he threw high to first base on Nicholas Castellanos’ grounder to the hole, and Jeimer Candelario followed with a two-run blast.

He more than made up for it at the top of the order. Anderson went 2-for-4 with two homers, a walk, four RBIs and three runs scored. His third multi-homer game gives him 10 on the season.

That’s one more than Abreu, even though he also joined the home run barrage. Abreu just had a perfect day at the plate, adding two doubles, a single and a walk.

Yolmer Sanchez went 0-for-5 with three strikeouts in between them, but Anderson and Abreu still found ways to team up.

In the third inning, Anderson drew a walk off Liriano, then scored from first on Abreu’s double to the left-field corner. Two innings later, Anderson and Abreu both hit solo shots around a Sanchez strikeout to tie the game.

Daniel Palka broke the tie in the sixth with a solo shot inside the right-field foul pole, but it was Anderson who delivered the bigger blow.

Yoan Moncada chased Liriano with a single, and Adam Engel greeted Louis Coleman with one. Coleman came back to get weak popouts from Trayce Thompson and Alfredo Gonzalez, but he couldn’t escape the inning without seeing Anderson. On a 1-1 count, Coleman threw Anderson a spinning slider, and Anderson raked it over the left-field wall for a three-run blast and a four-run lead.

Palka added an RBI single to put the game outside a slam, which was briefly important when Luis Avilan and Nate Jones teamed up to load the bases with two outs in the eighth. Leonys Martin’s smashed grounder was hit right to Moncada, ending the inning.

Santiago benefited from the outburst, picking up the win despite lasting only five innings. Candelario took him deep twice to account for all three runs, but it didn’t stop Santiago from throwing strikes. He issued just one walk to go along with five strikeouts

Bullet points:

*Abreu has 19 doubles on the year, good for a share of the MLB lead with Mookie Betts and Kevin Pillar.

*Anderson committed two more errors on what should’ve been the final out of the game. First, he got bit by a hop on the grounder. Then, when Candelario got caught rounding third casually, Anderson bounced his throw to the plate when any throw in the air would’ve had the out by plenty. Hey, he’d already seen an 22-game errorless streak come to an end, so he got his money’s worth.

*Alfredo Gonzalez went 0-for-4 with three strikesout in his MLB debut. He can say he caught a winner, and he also applied a tag on a 6-2 putout on a nice play by Anderson, who was drawn in with a runner on third.

Record: 16-33 | Box score

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