White Sox: Winning on the back of strikeouts vs Orioles

The Chicago White Sox pulled out a huge win over the Baltimore Orioles on Thursday night. It was a hard-fought game by the O’s who came in losers of nine straight but the White Sox were able to pull it out. It took them some time to get the bats going but eventually, they were good enough to take the 5-1 victory. There was a rain delay to start the game so it was a strange start but they finally figured it out.

Recording strikeouts was a big key to the Chicago White Sox victory on Thursday.

Dylan Cease was on the mound for the White Sox and he pitched an absolute gem of a game. He pitched 6.0 innings and gave up four hits, one run, two walks, and had a remarkable 10 strikeouts. For a long time, you heard that Cease’s stuff was so good but he needed to learn how to control it. Well, now he knows how to control it.

He can put hitters away by the combination of his many very good pitches. He got Orioles hitters to swing and miss 29 times in the contest which is good for his career high. It is so good that someone like Jacob deGro has that as his season high this year. If he continues to improve upon performances like that, he is going to be a huge piece of the White Sox staff for a very long time.

Cease’s 10 strikeouts were part of a 16 strikeout performance by the White Sox staff as a whole. The Orioles were not as successful at putting the ball in play as they would like to be. Some people will discredit that because of the fact that the Orioles aren’t a good baseball team right now but that is a terrible way to look at it. They are still a Major League lineup and anyone should have confidence after dominating them.

One player who deserves some credit on offense is Yermin Mercedes. The entire offense did their job for the most part but Yermin had a much needed bounce back. He was in a bit of a slump and it was amplified by his leaving 10 men on base against the St. Louis Cardinals on Wednesday. Well, he went two for three with a home run, three RBIs, and one run scored in this game. The home run had an exit velocity of 116.8 which was the 8th highest in the MLB so far this season. That was the Yerminater in full form on Thursday night.

This is a serious opportunity for the White Sox to gain some more ground. They are now 29-20 with three more games against these Orioles. The hope is that they can continue to take care of their business so they can start to build on their lead in the American League Central. If they continue to hit the ball like that and get dominant pitching, they should have a really good chance to do that.