A dark element of Michael A. Taylor striking out in 51.9 percent of his May plate appearances is that he still entered Tuesday night with easily a better triple slash on the season than starting center fielder Luis Robert Jr.
With Robert getting the first of two games off to renew his search for an offensive reset, Taylor played like a clear upgrade, driving in four and scoring twice in the White Sox' first victory over the Tigers in eight months.
If this opening premise seems silly, that has nothing on the way the Sox actually scored their runs. For the Tigers, the plus side of a bullpen game is it can be sequenced to stay a step ahead of a Sox lineup lousy with platoon hitters, as evidenced by opening the night with three no-hit innings. The downside is the opposing team can be sitting on one hit in the sixth before the bottom falls out without warning, even if they weren't prepared for a bullpen game in the first place.
"I totally didn't know it was a bullpen day," said Edgar Quero. "I thought he was starting. But yeah, always ready to go."
Miguel Vargas led off the fourth with a sharp single off lefty Brant Hurter to break up the fledgling no-no. Hurter would stay in the game to strikeout Andrew Benintendi, before righty Brent Hanifee entered and brought Vargas the rest of the way home. He induced a would-be inning-ending double play comebacker from Austin Slater, only to throw it too wide for Gleyber Torres to wrangle at second, and sprayed his sinker wildly for back-to-back two-out walks to Quero and Taylor to put the Sox ahead, effectively for good.
Things only got goofier against left-hander Tyler Holton in the sixth, especially as AJ Hinch watched him run into the two Sox hitters who are essentially rostered to face left-handers. Slater reached on a bouncer down the third base line that Javy Báez couldn't whip across the diamond in time to avoid an infield single, and Holton deflected a Quero comebacker away from his defense to create another. When he followed a first-pitch fastball at the knees with a higher changeup, Taylor golfed it against the wind for a game-breaking three-run shot.
"He’s had really good at-bats," said Will Venable. Opportunity for him has not been as consistent as with some other guys. So he continues to go out there and give us a shot and tonight was a great example of quality at-bats and big results."
Shane Smith simultaneously glided to 16 outs of scoreless baseball and also gave himself enough work to regularly find catharsis, defending the slimmest of leads when he had one at all. Smith saved his only 1-2-3 frame for his last complete inning of work, and against a lefty-heavy Tigers lineup, heavily deployed a curveball (9 called strikes or whiffs on 20 pitches) that been largely relegated to his fourth offering during this dynamic rookie season.
He also, once more, had a big fastball. Smith got Torres to roll over 97 mph in the first to defuse a leadoff walk to Parker Meadows. He dotted 98 mph on the inside edge to Spencer Torkelson while striking out two to strand a second inning leadoff single to Riley Greene. A night after launching three homers, Kerry Carpenter waved at two curves in the dirt to strand a pair of runners in the third.
"He’s a really good hitter, he’ll pick up on your patterns of what you’re trying to do," Smith said. "I think introducing the curveball a little bit more was a nice addition, making sure they’re not leaning over the plate with changeups and fastballs outside, establishing some inside fastball."
Understanding that every Smith start is a team decision between whether he's grinding (five innings) or dealing (six innings), the Sox split the difference and let him induce a weak popout from Torres on his 85th pitch for the first out of the sixth.
Pitchers deflecting balls away from their defenders must be a new viral trend, because Jordan Leasure did it on a Wenceel Pérez grounder to set up a Dillon Dingler RBI double that Slater had trouble unearthing out of the left field corner. And Brandon Eisert by just straight-up boofing a Torkelson bouncer to his glove to load the bases in the eighth. Eisert cleaned up his own mess by getting Pérez to whiff on a face-high heater, before Mike Tauchman ran down a deep Dingler drive to right to end the threat.
The threat was also only so threatening because the Sox pounced on the soft underbelly of rookie relievers that a 4-1 lead reveals. Slater drilled a two-run double in the seventh off the recently called-up Dylan Smith, before Tauchman and Chase Meidroth connected on RBI singles in the eighth off Chase Lee, padding the Sox' already wildly disproportionate total of blowouts.
Bullet points:
*Vargas had two hits and walked. His quality of at-bats hasn't really dipped even as his mega-heater has subsided, but it's his first multi-hit performance in...six games. He's been pretty good.
*This was Taylor's first four RBI game since April 13, 2023 against the Yankees, when he homered twice. He also stole a base, which had him in the trainer's room late Tuesday night. It's not expected to keep him out of the lineup Wednesday.
*Josh Rojas was the only Sox starter without a hit.
*Sox hitting scored more runs (7) in the final three innings of this game than they had in the previous four games (6).
*Jared Shuster will start a pen game on Wednesday.
