White Sox 3, Tigers 0: Dylan Cease has Detroit’s number

Dylan Cease entered today's start with six wins in six starts against Detroit.

Seven shutout innings later, Cease is 7-for-7.

Cease used his favorite opponent to continue his pattern of answering weak starts with strong ones. Coming off a disappointing 3⅓ innings against Cleveland last Tuesday, Cease fanned 10 Tigers while allowing just five hits and a walk. He might've had six hits and one run on his tab were it not for Adam Engel, who robbed Niko Goodrum of a homer in his first game of the season.

Throw in perfect innings for Aaron Bummer and Liam Hendriks, and the combined run-prevention effort made one crooked number hold up as sufficient. Pair this win with Cleveland's loss to Baltimore, and the White Sox now lead the AL Central by four games.

Cease had his fastball and both breaking balls working for him, resulting in 67 strikes out of just 99 pitches. The whiff total (16) doesn't jump off the page until you realized that he also got 19 called strikes, which tied a season high he set in his gem against the Reds back on May 4. He spent the afternoon on the attack, and Goodrum was the only one who came close to making him pay.

Goodrum led off the fifth by swinging at a get-me-over curve on the first pitch and drove it deep to just right of center. Engel raced back toward the track with enough time to get his bearings. He located the wall, then located the ball, which had drifted back over his other shoulder. He turned to face the plate, then jumped in the other direction to catch a ball that would have landed on the harmful side of the yellow stripe.

Billy Hamilton might've made that catch, but Engel swapped places with him before the game, with Hamiton hitting the IL for the oblique he strained on Saturday. Every other center field option probably doesn't get it done, even Luis Robert

The White Sox led 3-0 at that point, and they led 3-0 the rest of the way. They scored all their runs during a second inning that shows why Nick Madrigal bats ninth.

Adam Eaton sliced a triple inside the left-field line and past a sliding Akil Baddoo with one out, then scored on Andrew Vaughn's single. After Engel popped out, Nick Madrigal followed with his own line-drive double to left, but it only moved Vaughn to third. The lineup turned over for Tim Anderson, who deposited Jose Ureña's 1-2 changeup into center for a two-run single and a sizable early cushion.

The cushion stayed the same the rest of the way, as the White Sox managed just three other hits. They weren't overmatched by Detroit's pitchers, as they had the same number of walks, strikeouts and HBPs with two apiece. Most of the best contact stayed on the ground, and so the offense stayed grounded. Thanks to Cease, an otherwise quiet day at the plate ended up being loud enough.

Bullet points:

*Tony La Russa now owns sole possession of second place on the all-time managerial wins list with 2,764. Connie Mack is next ... at 3,731.

*The White Sox eclipsed last year's win total in one fewer game.

*Anderson bailed out Yoán Moncada and pantsed Willi Castro with a heads-up play in the seventh. Castro's awkward checked-swing resulted in a line drive bunt. Castro didn't know where it went, so he didn't initially see the short-hop eat up Moncada, giving Anderson enough time to swoop over, round off the ball and fire to first.

*José Abreu had the day off after a rough stretch, giving him two in a row before the Sox resume play Tuesday.

*The game had a familiar finish:

Record: 36-23 | Box score | Statcast