Hit parade continues as Sox beat Tigers 5-3
Hi, I'm back! Did you miss me? Lurker's Bitmoji approves of all the hitting.
The White Sox collected 17 hits this evening, on the heels of 19 hits last night, with the roster going all Oprah on the Tigers: You get a hit! You get a hit! Everybody gets a hit!
José Abreu led the way, going 3-for-5 with 2 more RBIs, bringing his total to 121 so far, leading all of MLB. Whether you like the RBI stat or not, 121 of them ain't nothin'. Also, he's like your dad, making sure everybody drinks their water:
Yoán Moncada had two RBIs of his own with a triple in the fifth. Tim Anderson started the scoring with a solo shot in that same inning; his batting average sits at .335.
The score was all zeros going into the fifth, when the Sox got the aforementioned three runs, then proceeded to give two of them back in the bottom of the inning on a Victor Reyes ground out and a Brandon Dixon sacrifice fly.
Iván Nova continued his post-May competence in Nova fashion: allowing plenty of hits himself (eight), but also inducing plenty of ground balls, including two double plays (Yolmer, TA, and José looked very good together tonight). Evan Marshall and birthday boy Aaron Bummer combined for three scoreless innings, and Alex Colomé got the save.
For all of their hits, the Sox wasted plenty of opportunities that would have come back to haunt them against a better team: 12 left on base, including leaving two men on three separate times, and an Adam Engel TOOTBLAN in the sixth to end a scoring threat. That left the score at an uncomfortably close 3-2 going into the eighth. With one out, Yolmer Sánchez singled, and Leury García followed an out later. Then, an extraordinary thing happened: Anderson walked. He looked disgusted about it, too; the guy wants to hit. But the bases were loaded, and Abreu came through:
Colomé made things a bit too close for comfort in the ninth, giving up two hits and a run (and not helped by a passed ball from James McCann) before a spectacular stretch from Abreu saved a double play, and a strikeout of Reyes brought things to a close.
Tonight's three things:
This rebuild may work: If we play the Tigers for 162 games.
I watched so you didn't have to: It was an unseasonably warm September Saturday evening. I stayed inside watching two teams who will both pick in the top 10 of next year's draft. This whole game was "I watched so you didn't have to."
This is what being a Sox fan feels like: Sweating out the ninth inning against a 108-loss team.
The good guys go for the series sweep tomorrow at 12:10, Reynaldo López on the hill.