For one half-inning, it was 1996 out there. The rest of the game looked thoroughly like 2021.
Fortunately, the White Sox were the ones who turned back the clock, greeting rookie Daniel Lynch with an eight-run first inning to lock in a series win against the Royals in Kansas City, with a chance at the sweep on Sunday.
Making his second-ever start in the big leagues, Lynch looked a lot like a combination of Jonathan Stiever's second and third outings. The White Sox greeted him for two runs on three hits before he recorded his first out, three runs on three hits when Yasmani Grandal hit a sac fly for the second out ...
... and Lynch never recorded the third. He instead gave up three consecutive run-scoring hits. Andrew Vaughn almost hit his first homer but settled for an RBI double, Leury García chased him home with a triple into the right-field corner, and Danny Mendick drove both García and himself in with a two-run homer that flipped the lineup over.
Once Tim Anderson singled for the second time in the inning, Mike Matheny finally ended Lynch's misery, but the rest of the Royals would have to wait a little. Nick Madrigal greeted Tyler Zuber with a single, his second of the inning, and Yoán Moncada, who doubled home two his first time up as a right-handed hitter, rifled a single from the other side to give the Sox an 8-0 lead.
White Sox pitching kept it academic from there. Lance Lynn didn't have his usual control, issuing four walks over five innings and throwing just 51 of 90 pitches for strikes. He mitigated any complications by limiting the Royals to just one hit, and only two hard-hit balls on the evening. He made pitches when he needed to, and the result was a fourth consecutive scoreless start by a White Sox pitcher.
Michael Kopech was the one to spoil a shutout, as he had his second consecutive mortal appearance. An inning after stranding runners on second and third with a pair of popouts, he gave up a leadoff triple to Jarrod Dyson, who came home to score on a sac fly in the seventh. The good news is that the Sox didn't need dominance -- they needed two straightforward innings, and he more or less delivered on those on 28 pitches, even if he only recorded one strikeout.
Matt Foster handled the eighth and Evan Marshall the ninth, as both were in need of work.
Kris Bubic saved the KC bullpen with 5⅔ scoreless innings, over which he allowed a single to García and three walks to Grandal. The Sox almost went the rest of the way without scoring, but Abreu scorched a two-out double off the wall just left of center, and Yermín Mercedes scored him with a single through the left side.
That allowed Grandal to come to the plate and draw his fourth walk of the day. He now has 13 over the last four games, which ties him with Bryce Harper in 2016 and Babe Ruth in 1930 for the most in such a span. Tim Anderson drew 13 walks over 147 games in 2017 to get an idea of how one lineup can span the spectrum.
Bullet points:
*Mendick got the start in right field and played the whole game without incident. He had no experience in that corner, but nine games of left field experience in the minors probably helped a little.
*Vaughn reached the warning track in three different parts of the park.
*Anderson made a crazy sno-cone pick to turn Sebastian Rivero's attempt at a first major-league hit into a game-ending double play.
