Sale Solid in first Start
How about that? Chris Sale made his debut as a starter one to remember earning a victory in Cleveland and moving the White Sox to 2-2 on the young season.
White Sox: 4
Indians: 2
The Sox offense did their best to allow Chris to relax on the bump jumping out to a 3-0 lead in the first via a HR each from Alejandro De Aza and AJ Pierzynski. On the other end Sale did nothing but toss up zeroes. He did an excellent job of changing speeds and keeping the Indians hitters off balance, inducing plenty of weak contact. Outside of a ball that carried a little too far in on Shin-Soo Choo for the HBP, there wasn’t much that could be negatively said about Sale’s start. He finished his 6.2 innings with 5Ks while allowing just 3 hits and 2 walks.
The run scoring settled down after the first, though the hits continued. Ducks on the pond remained on the pond time and time again when it came time for the Sox to head back into the field. De Aza added to his homerun with a hustle double. I’m not sure if it’s a new team goal to extra take the extra base or if we just had a couple of days in a row where sure singles were turned into doubles by a little bit of aggressive running but either way I like it. So long as it’s not AJ doing the stretching, we’re in good shape. De Aza’s hits to start his day also earned him a green light on a 3-0 later in the game. The result was a ground out, but it shows that Ventura has the confidence to turn a guy not named Konerko loose 3-0. That’ll keep pitchers honest as long as our guys can be good about what they actually swing at with those green lights.
Ozzie Gullien’s Castro comments didn’t affect our Cubans. Both Alexei Ramirez and Dayan Viciedo had good days at the plate tallying 2 hits each. Alexei was his usual dazzling self in the field while Viciedo avoided any special OF adventures which constitutes a good fielding day for him as well! Tank also managed to draw a walk. Watch out, people!
Hector Santiago earned his second save of the season. He did allow a bomb off of the foul pole to Jose Lopez but with a 3 run lead that’s allowed.
Plus: Chris Sale was clearly the recipient of the game ball. That performance definitely gives Sox fans some extra hope for what this season can bring. Brent Morel got on the board! First hit of the season, first RBI of the season.
Minus: Alex Rios had a tough time corralling a rather un-tough fly ball. I feel like 1 or 2 years he just pops one right out of the glove. But, I agreed (with myself) to let Alex go a little while after his homerun the other night so I’ll just leave it at that.
We now pull to .500 for the 2nd time this year. If the season goes the way I suspect it will, we’ll be hitting that many more times.
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