White Sox 10, Royals 7: Heart of order does heavy lifting

White Sox win

With four-fifths of the original White Sox rotation injured, struggling or otherwise compromised, there are going to be games like this.

The good news is that “games like this” doesn’t denote an automatic loss. The White Sox have enough offense to win a slobberknocker.

The Sox pounded Daniel Lynch for the second time in three tries behind huge games from Luis Robert, José Abreu and Yasmani Grandal, which was enough to hold off a Royals offense that outhomered the White Sox 3-2, including Salvador Perez’s 39th and 40th blasts of the year. Pair it with a Cleveland walk-off loss in Boston, and the White Sox lead the AL Central by 10½ games and lowered their magic number to 18.

Luis Robert greeted Lynch with a 452-foot homer in the first, and Yasmani Grandal added a two-run shot to center before the third out, giving the Sox a 3-0 lead before Reynaldo López took the mound. They held a pair of six-run leads entering the bottoms of the third and fifth innings, but ultimately had to sweat it out a little.

The key was the six-run leads, and while that sounds banal, Mike Matheny already charted a course with his lesser relievers before Perez’s two blasts gave Kansas City more of a chance than it seemed. The Sox chased Lynch in the third with three runs thanks to their first four batters reaching and two productive outs. Matheny called for Ervin Santana, paving the path for more runs down the line.

The Sox needed most of them. López looked more like his 2019 self, getting only five swinging strikes on 65 pitches, and with a fastball that hovered between 92-94 over the second half of his four innings. Both his fastball and slider were hit hard — 93.4 mph average exit velocity on the former, 89.9 mph on the latter — and pitching backward didn’t help matters. He gave up three hits on the slider in the third — a leadoff single, an RBI double, and a two-run homer to Perez on the first pitch with two outs that cut the White Sox’s lead to 6-3.

The Sox got those three runs back over the next two innings. Danny Mendick and Robert hit infield singles over the first three batters, followed by Abreu’s 500th extra base hit in the form of an RBI double, and a Grandal sac fly.

In the fifth, Leury García led off with a single, beat Whit Merrifield to the bag on César Hernández’s infield single up the middle, then advanced the other 180 feet on a pair of productive outs, including a soft Romy González groundout for his first career RBI.

Those runs became necessary when Michael Kopech saw a couple of his fastballs end up over the wall. In the fifth, a pair of unremarkable ground ball singles extended the game to Perez, who turned on a first-pitch fastball on the inside corner at 99 and hoisted it just over the wall in left for a three-run homer and a 9-6 game. An inning later, Carlos Santana crushed a groove fastball way out to right to make it a two-run game for the first time.

Pérez had a chance to tie the game in the seventh when Nicky Lopez’s checked-swing single with two outs extended the inning. Craig Kimbrel didn’t give him anything to hit, and that turned out to be the correct strategy. Perez swung at three knuckle curves that were nowhere close to the zone.

Sometimes it’s just that simple.

The Sox did kick in one more run to get to double digits. Abreu, who saw 34 pitches over his five plate appearances, lined the final of thsoe pitches for a leadoff double, moved to third on a wild pitch during a Grandal walk, and scored on Andrew Vaughn’s single through the right side.

That run proved unnecessary because the post-Kopech relievers did their job. Ryan Tepera finished the sixth, followed by scoreless innings from Kimbrel, Aaron Bummer and Liam Hendriks. At least that part went the way the White Sox drew it up.

The others: Luis Robert going 4-for-5 with three runs scored from their second spot, backed by José Abreu going 3-for-4 with a walk, Eloy Jiménez drawing three walks, and Grandal driving in four with a 3-for-3 game from the fifth spot.

Bullet points:

*Mendick ended the seventh inning by getting thrown out trying to go from first to third on a Luis Robert grounder that Whit Merrifield kept in the infield. The idea was fine. Inexplicably stopping between second and third for half a second, then not sliding into third is what killed him.

*González batted leadoff in his first start and went 0-for-5 with three strikeouts.

*López gave up five batted balls over 100 mph, but a number of them found Robert, who had a great game in center.

*Sunday’s game will decide the season series, which is tied at 9.

Record: 79-57 | Box score | Statcast

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LamarHoyt_oncrack

I wish Grandal could save a streak like this for the playoffs. En fuego. Ditto Robert.

To Err is Herrmann

I am glad Kimbrel seems to be settling down. I was glad the Alabaster Hose got him. I thought it was time to win now. Still, he worries me.

ERA, Craig Kimbrel
2019 — 6.53
2020 — 5.28

Post-Season ERA
2017 ALDS — 4.50
2018 ALDS — 11.57
2018 ALCS — 4.50
2018 WS. — 4.15

I know 0.49 in 36 innings in 2021 is ungodly good, but wasn’t regression always
a possibiltiy? Not questioning the trade, but I don’t have enough baseball knowledge or time to research it (online teaching, it doesn’t stop) but why is it believed that 2021 Kimbrel is a sustainable bet? Short time left in the season when he is on the roll of his lifetime? Best reliever in baseball on the open market? Recovery from injury, change in mechanics, return to form on a given pitch?

What were the considerations the great triumvirate put through the decision making process before rolling the dice? No snark here (other than great triumvirate), and not questioning the trade — it’s a win now move — but as a successful fantasy baseball manager who has Yasmani Grandal in the lineup every day after picking up Buster Posey on waivers week one even I would wonder at Kimbrel’s 2018 postseason and 2019-20 and wonder if 2021 might be a mirage?

Now hit me with FIP, HR/9, BB%, heat maps — I am beginning to pick this stuff after 5 and 1/2 years of reading.

Thanks — not that anyone has to respond. It’s 1 a.m. in New Mexico and nothing’s on TV, wife is asleep, dog is asleep. SoxMachine is my late night gift to myself after grading freshman comp essays.

ParisSox

Talk about throwing Gonzalez into the deep end. The nerves he must have had leading off in front of Robert, Abreu, Eloy, Grandal. Maybe batting 9th might have been better for his first start. But TLR has the leeway to experiment so maybe he wanted to test his (Gonzalez) mettle.

LamarHoyt_oncrack

Or it could be one of a growing list of questionable decisions TLR has made all year that have not benefited anyone, with nobody to hold TLR accountable.

LamarHoyt_oncrack

True, yet it is still questionable to hit somebody leadoff in their first start when it is a game you are trying to win for playoff seeding.

Brett R. Bobysud

At the present moment, Astros, White Sox, Yankees, and Red Sox are all within 1.5 games of each other in terms of record.

joe blow

The only one that matters is Houston. Bos and NY will be playing in the wild card game and then play TB. Wild card teams cannot get home field advantage

jhomeslice

Hope we get word of a rehab start for Engel soon. With all their injuries, he has played the least of their regulars. I hope they take that into account trying to figure out their RF situation for next year.