3 Takeaways After White Sox Get Strong Debut From Perez But Fall to Tiges

The Chicago White Sox, in Game 1 of their weekend series with the Detroit Tigers, lost 4-3. While it wasn't Tarik Skubal's sharpest game, he got the job done against the White Sox.

The White Sox will face Troy Melton on Saturday against a to be determined starter.

Here's what stood out in the loss against Skubal and the Tigers.

Junior Pérez Has Career Game

Outfielder Junior Pérez, who was brought up on Thursday for his MLB debut to replace outfielder Everson Pereira, had a great game for the White Sox.

He recorded his first two MLB hits on Friday, including a home run off Skubal. Overall, it was a great game for Pérez, who brought energy to the plate and the field.

Randal Grichuk also got out of his mini-slump, going 2-for-3 with a home run and a double.

Roster Mixup, Mistakes Doom Sox

Will Venable's club made the questionable decision to move Chase Meidroth into the three-hole, while having Miguel Vargas lead off.

The results were disastrous.

Meidroth had a few tries with runners in scoring position on Friday, but failed to record a hit, going 0-for-4, leaving the bases loaded once. The White Sox were 0-for-5 with runners in scoring position and left six runners on base.

It felt like if Vargas were in the situations Meidroth were in, this game could've been won.

In addition, the game was lost in the sixth inning, when Tristan Peters dove for a fly ball in front of him. He would miss the ball, and it would go behind him. This would lead to two runs scoring on the play, which happened to be the tying and go-ahead run.

Brandon Eisert Struggles

Reliever Brandon Eisert opened the game for the White Sox, but struggled along the way. He would fork over a two-run home run to Matt Vierling in the first inning, with two hits given up.

Eisert would record just four outs before being pulled for bulk pitcher Erick Fedde, throwing 32 pitches in that timeframe.

At this point, the Eisert opener experiment may have run its course. In his last seven games (three starts), Eisert has pitched to a 7.36 ERA with eight hits allowed. If you're the White Sox, you can't continue to trot out Eisert for starts.

While Fedde had a decent game (two runs allowed in 4.2 innings), it wasn't enough for the White Sox to beat Skubal.

The White Sox will hope to keep the series alive on Saturday.

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