White Sox offense explodes for six home runs on Opening Day against the Kansas City Royals. This all came after the team trailed early.
Chicago White Sox fans saw one of the more dominant Opening Day victories in recent memory on Thursday afternoon. After trailing the Kansas City Royals early, the Sox exploded for a team record six home runs on Opening Day for a 14-7 victory over the Royals.
Matt Davidson and Tim Anderson each had multi-home run games in the Sox win over Kansas City. Davidson hit three home runs in his first Opening Day start, while Anderson hit two home runs in a single game for the first time in his career. Jose Abreu also hit a home run, which started the scoring for the Sox in the fourth inning.
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James Shields made his eighth career Opening Day start on Thursday against one of his former teams in the Royals. However, Shields didn’t get off to a good start as he allowed four earned runs in the first inning before an out was recorded. Kansas City began the scoring with an RBI single from Mike Moustakas that scored Jon Jay in the first inning.
Lucas Duda would later hit a three-run home run to extend the Royals lead to 4-0. With the Sox not recording an out at that point, it appeared this game would get out of hand very quickly. But Shields would get out of the first inning and settled down to hold Kansas City scoreless over the next five innings.
The Sox struggled on offense initially against Royals starting pitcher Danny Duffy. Duffy held the Sox scoreless through three innings but was unable to last past the fourth inning. After a single by Avisail Garcia in the fourth inning, Abreu got the Sox on the board with a two-run home run. Davidson would later follow Abreu with a solo home run to move the Sox closer at 4-3. Anderson would tie the game with a solo home run in the fourth inning.
Yoan Moncada added an RBI double to put the Sox ahead for good at 5-4. Duffy wouldn’t return after the fourth inning, but that didn’t stop the Sox offense from having a historic day. Davidson hit his second home run of the game in the sixth inning. Anderson later followed with his second home run, a two-run shot to extend the Sox lead to 8-4.
While the Sox had already set a team record with five home runs on Opening Day, Davidson helped the team tie the Major League record with his third dinger of the game in the eighth inning. This extended the Sox lead to 14-4 and tied the team with the 1988 New York Mets for the most home runs on Opening Day.
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With the Sox win on Thursday, they begin the season with some great momentum. They also showed they were able to carry over their strong offense from spring training into the start of the regular season. The Sox will be off on Friday but will face Kansas City in game two of this series on Saturday. Lucas Giolito will start for the Sox as the Royals will start Ian Kennedy.