Chicago White Sox: Week in Review 8/5-8/11
The Chicago White Sox had a week in which they hosted the Detroit Tigers and the Oakland Athletics and they were pretty good on the homestand.
The Chicago White Sox played the Tigers for four games including a doubleheader on Tuesday. The first game of this series took place on Monday. Lucas Giolito took on Spencer Turnbull. Giolito pitched pretty well, allowing three runs in six innings despite struggling early. Jimmy Cordero, Jace Fry, and Alex Colome finished up with three scoreless innings and the offense beat up on Turnbull, Gregory Soto, and Buck Farmer. Tim Anderson was 3/5 with two runs and Matt Skole knocked in two with a double that was helped by some lackluster Tigers defense. The Sox defeated the terrible Tigers 5-3.
Game two of the four-game series was the sixth start of Dylan Cease’s career. He only walked one while striking out six in five innings pitched. The White Sox hit Tigers starter Daniel Norris pretty hard, scoring four runs in five and 2/3 innings pitched. Jose Abreu walked once and had three hits including a home run to lead the offense. Ryan Goins tripled and singled to continued his surprising productivity. Evan Marshall, Aaron Bummer, and Colome gave up one run over four innings and the Sox won 5-3 against the truly awful Tigers.
The second game of the Tuesday doubleheader featured a pitching matchup of Hector Santiago and Drew VerHagen. Santiago wasn’t good. There’s a reason the Mets released him from a bad bullpen. Santiago gave up four earned runs in 4.2 innings pitched. Miguel Cabrera was 3/5 against the Sox. Dylan Covey was also bad, giving up three runs in 2.2 innings pitched. The offense for the Sox did their job, scoring six runs. Leury Garcia, Eloy Jimenez and Goins all had three hits. The Sox scored six, but that doesn’t matter much when Hector Santiago and Dylan Covey are pitching. The White Sox lost 10-6.
In game four the White Sox had a chance to win a series against the worst team in baseball. Ivan Nova took the hill. Before the game, the White Sox sent Dylan Covey to Charlotte. He may not be able to pitch, but at least he has accumulated a lot of frequent flyer miles traveling from Charlotte to Chicago and back. Nova continued his recent excellent pitching since the All-Star break. In fact, since the All-Star break, Ivan Nova has pitched 38.2 innings and has a 2.79 ERA.
There are only eight pitchers in baseball to pitch more innings than Nova with a lower ERA during that time period. Thankfully for the White Sox, one of those eight is Reynaldo Lopez. Nova pitched eight innings and gave up no runs. James McCann and Abreu both had three hits. Tim Anderson added four more hits to that. Ryan Goins is the only player who didn’t make it on base for the Sox. The White Sox won the game 8-1.