Chicago White Sox: Jimmy Lambert earns first MLB victory

With recent injuries to Lance Lynn and Lucas Giolito, the Chicago White Sox found themselves in a precarious spot and called up Jimmy Lambert to make a start in a crucial series against the Oakland A’s.

With the remaining schedule, the next two opponents that the Sox are facing are by far going to be the most challenging in the Boston Red Sox and Oakland A’s. With that, handing the ball to Lambert must have been a lot of pressure for a kid who has allowed 8 earned runs in as many innings pitched on the season at the big league level.

Lambert did not disappoint. He tossed 5 innings of 1 run ball on 70 pitches, earning the victory in the process. Clearly, it was his best outing in a White Sox uniform and he can rest assured that the front office has some newly found optimism in him.

Though he gave up 3 hits and 2 walks, the lone blemish came in the 1st inning when Josh Harrison led off with a double, which ultimately became a run scored off of a Matt Olson sacrifice fly. He threw a total of 70 pitches in his outing.

The Chicago White Sox won thanks to the first MLB win for Jimmy Lambert.

As for the offense, Luis Robert stayed red hot going 2-5 on the evening while Yoan Moncada went 3-5 with two doubles. Cesar Hernandez went 2-4 but drove in two important RBIs in the top of the 5th which helped secure the win for Lambert. Brian Goodwin came through clutch with a 2 RBI single in the top of the 8th which gave the Sox a 6-1 lead at the time.

Ryan Burr would come out for the bottom of the 8th and ultimately surrender two runs on two hits, only being able to record 1 out in the process. Craig Kimbrel would come in to relieve him and gave up a single which would charge the 2nd of 2 runs to Burr before Kimbrel would escape after Starling Marte stole second and reached 3rd base due to a throwing error from Grandal on the stolen base attempt.

In the top of 9th, Leury Garcia would single and steal second before Hernandez picked up his second hit of the game but nothing would come from it in the scoring department. The Sox led 6-3 going into the bottom of the 9th when Tony La Russa called upon Liam Hendriks for an important save opportunity to take game one in Oakland.

That is exactly what he did. Hendriks came in and slammed the door while facing the minimum and notching his AL-leading 33rd save of the season as the White Sox would defeat the Athletics 6-3. It was a good showing from the offense and they recorded 15 hits while improving to 4-1 against Oakland on the regular season.

Tomorrow’s game will see Dallas Keuchel take on Frankie Montas at the same start time of 8:40 CT. Keuchel needs to snap out of whatever funk he has been in as of late and bring this one home. The Sox are now 80-58 on the season. With Cleveland losing today as well, the White Sox have dropped their magic number down to 15.