Dunn’s Blast Enough To Back Solid Pitching Effort

Once again, an Adam Dunn homer is enough to lead the team to victory while a White Sox starter felt they better go ahead and put up a stellar outing anyway. Gavin Floyd shut down Royals hitters for 7.2 innings, striking out 5 while walking 2 in the shutout. As the game finally started to catch up with him in the 8th, Matt Thornton entered to strike out Eric Hosmer and ended the only true threat for Kansas City.

Royals (11-20): 0
White Sox (16-17): 5

The offense provided more than enough help behind the RBI efforts of Gordon Beckham, Alex Rios and Alejandro De Aza, all pitching in to compliment the first inning homerun by Adam Dunn that put the Sox in the lead to stay. Dunn also did himself a favor with his evening of 2 hits and 2 walks which kept him out of the record books coming up one strikeout shy of the major league record for consecutive games with a strikeout. That pesky 2 spot in the order that has haunted the White Sox with ineffectiveness all season came through with a 2-4 contribution from Beckham. The majority of the offensive Friday night was supplied by the front 3 in the batting order as De Aza, Beckham and Dunn combined to go 6 for 10.

Plus: The baserunning effort came up on the plus end as the Sox came up 2-3 in the stealing department. Alejandro De Aza was successful once and was also caught once while Eduardo Escobar made it through with a clean swipe in his only attempt.

Minus: The baserunning effort still registered a success rate below the break-even point for run expectancy. As always, I implore: do not steal unless you are going to be safe. If you don’t know, don’t go.

Tipping Point
Adam Dunn’s first inning homerun, worth 10.9% in run expectancy is the most game changing event of the evening for the second game in a row.

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