Quintana stymies Rangers, White Sox win 5-0

CHICAGO – The Chicago White Sox kicked off the weekend tilt with the American League West leading Texas Rangers with a dominant 5-0 victory on Friday night at U.S. Cellular Field.

White Sox starter Jose Quintana held the Rangers, who had won their previous four games, scoreless through seven innings of four hit work on Friday night on the south side. The Offense made its way to the ball park tonight too as the White Sox put up five runs on seven hits.

Matt Albers, and Zach Putnam each threw a scoreless inning in relief of Quintana, who moved to 2-1 on the season,  and lowered his ERA to 1.82, joining Chris Sale and Mat Latos in the “ERA under 2.00 club”. The White Sox moved to 11-6 on the season with the victory on Friday evening.

Scoring Summary

2nd Inning (Bottom): Melky Cabrera kicked off the scoring in the home half of the second inning, after advancing to third on a pop fly by Dioner Navarro, Cabrera scored on a wild pitch with Tyler Saladino at the plate giving the White Sox a 1-0 lead.

3rd Inning (Bottom): In the bottom of the third Jose Abreu stretched the White Sox lead to two after he plated Adam Eaton via a sacrifice fly to center-field.

6th Inning (Bottom): In the bottom of the sixth inning with Todd Frazier and Melky Cabrera on base, second-baseman Brett Lawrie doubled to center-field scoring both Frazier and Cabrera, giving the White Sox a 4-0 lead. Jerry Sands added another run in the bottom of the sixth with an RBI single that scored Lawrie, giving the Sox a 5-0 lead through six innings.

Escape Act

The Sox entered the home half of the sixth inning up by just two runs, before the offense plated three more insurance runs stretching the lead to five runs heading into the seventh inning.

Defensive Gem

In what will go down as one of the more wacky plays in White Sox history, the White Sox turned a 9-3-2-6-2-5 triple play. With the bases loaded, and no one out in the top of the seventh inning Adam Eaton made the catch for the first out in right field, then proceeded to throw to first baseman Jose Abreu who tagged Ian Desmond out for the second out. Abreu then threw to the plate to cut down Prince Fielder, who never left third base, Navarro threw down to second base to get the runner retreating from third, before Tyler Saladino threw the ball back to Navarro catching Prince Fielder in a rundown, before he was eventually tagged out by Sox third-baseman Todd Frazier for the third out.

Notables

Jose Quintana: 7 IP, 0 R, 4 H, 4 K

Melky Cabrera: 2-4, 2B, 2 R

Brett Lawrie: 1-3, 2B, 2 RBI, 1 R

Game Ball

Jose Quintana moved to 2-1 on the year, and lowered his ERA to 1.82 with a stellar performance on Friday night against the Rangers. Quintana allowed just four hits over seven scoreless innings, continuing the dominant White Sox pitching trend this season.

On Deck

Saturday 1:10 PM: Chicago White Sox (11-6) vs Texas Rangers (10-7) @ U.S. Cellular Field

Probables: Carlos Rodon (1-2, 4.73 ERA) vs Colby Lewis (1-0, 4.00 ERA)

Broadcast Info: TV: CSN / Radio: WLS 890AM