For those wondering why the White Sox have felt more watchable this year despite the record, here's one stat to consider:
Last year, the White Sox only had 11 blowout wins, which Baseball-Reference.com considers margin of five or more runs. With Saturday's victory, the White Sox already have four, which puts them on a pace for 24. The rate of victories may not be all that different, but there's a far greater frequency of stress-free showings.
The Sox effectively had this one in the bag after one inning, when they jumped on Jeffrey Springs for four first-inning runs. It certainly felt more convincing when they expanded it to 6-0 after two.
"The guys came out swinging," said Will Venable. "Really felt like we picked up where we left off the night before. Got good pitches to hit and didn’t miss them."
That's when Jonathan Cannon took over. Venable once again deployed Tyler Gilbert to give his right-handed starter a softer start against Oakland's lefty-heavy lineup, and Cannon nearly carried the game the rest of the way, throwing 7 ⅔ innings on 95 pitches. Venable took the ball from Cannon after Nick Kurtz's two-out single in the ninth, and Penn Murfee only needed one pitch to finish the job.
"I liked it," said a reliably blunt Edgar Quero. "We hit a lot. We did a really good job pitching too. I thought I did a really good job calling this game today and Jonathan was phenomenal. Really good."
Cannon might not have needed Gilbert's help with the changeup he had at his disposal. Cannon leaned heavily on it, throwing it more than any other pitch (32). It accounted for 10 of his 14 whiffs, and none of the four changes put into play sniffed "hard-hit" status.
"I'm going to be up tonight thinking about how I didn’t throw [a changeup] to Kurtz there in the ninth, but that’s water under the bridge," Cannon said. "The pitches that I've got burned on this year has really been kind of like my fourth or fifth best pitch to lefties. So it's really just kind of throwing that changeup more and more, and I think you saw it today. I don't know how much I threw it, but it felt like I threw it a lot."
Or perhaps he simply could relax and pitch to the score, since he was spotted that enormous cushion. Luis Robert Jr. wasted no time atoning for his performance on Friday with a solo shot two batters in, and it managed to be a table-setting homer. Quero drew a walk, and while Andrew Vaughn flied out to right, three consecutive two-out doubles followed. Lenyn Sosa lined a double into the right field corner that stuck by the padding and allowed Quero to score all the way from first despite an ugly slide at the end. Sosa scored easily on Michael A. Taylor's double, and Taylor did the same on Brooks Baldwin's.
An inning later, Gio Urshela let a potential double-play ball from Robert skip under his glove to put two on with one out, and Quero lined a single to right to make it 5-0. Robert went from first to third on the play, then scored on Vaughn's sac fly.
Springs was somehow able to last six innings, but the White Sox were able to resume stat-padding before his afternoon came to a close. Taylor opened the sixth with his second of three doubles, stole third with one out, then scored on a Jake Amaya sac fly to make it 7-1.
Noah Murdock took over for Springs in the seventh and opened the inning by walking Robert, Quero and Vaughn to load the bases. Taylor's third double drove home two, and then a shanked dribbler from Bobby Dalbec turned into an RBI single to put the Sox into double digits.
Bullet points:
*Cannon's 7 ⅔ innings made for the longest relief appearance since Kent Emanuel, who threw 8 ⅔ innings for the Astros in 2021. It's the longest relief appearance for a White Sox pitcher since Mélido Pérez, who recorded 23 outs in relief of Ramón García in 1991.
*Six of the White Sox's 11 hits went for extra bases, and they went 5-for-12 with runners in scoring position.
*Every White Sox starter reached base except Amaya, who contributed with the sac fly. Quero reached base four times with two hits and two walks.
"I know Edgar from four, five years ago," said Miguel Vargas. "I've seen how good and how disciplined he is in the box, and how he manages the game behind the plate. It's really good and that's a good thing for us."
*Joshua Palacios had a very funny unsuccessful attempt to flag down a ball in deep right field after entering as a defensive substitution.
*Gage Workman also entered as a defensive substitution for his White Sox debut.
