One encouraging takeaway from White Sox series against Tigers

Fans of the Chicago White Sox entered this season with a lot of excitement. That excitement took a hit on opening day when the White Sox gave up a late lead and lost the first game of the season.

Fortunately, Chicago was able to put together two consecutive victories, including an emphatic win on Sunday to secure the first series win of the year.

In those three games, the Sox gave fans a lot of reasons to be excited about the remaining 159 regular-season games. However, there’s one thing that may be more encouraging than everything else.

That one thing is the fact that Chicago was able to manufacture runs without relying on home runs. It would be nice to see them score more often this season in more than one way.

The Chicago White Sox weren’t home-run dependent to open the 2022 season.

Over the three games in Detroit, the White Sox scored a total of 19 runs. However, Chicago only hit three homers in the series, resulting in a total of six runs.

The Sox were able to do a good job of picking up singles and extra-base hits, as well as stealing bases and effective base running on an outfield that didn’t have the best arms.

This should be encouraging because as great and exciting as home runs are, they can be detrimental when teams begin to rely on them. This was one of the Sox critiques in 2020.

When Chicago finally broke through that season, a big reason why was the 96 home runs which were third-best in MLB that year. However, the offense would occasionally go quiet if the lineup couldn’t find the home runs that everyone had fallen in love with.

If the series against the Tigers is any indication, that won’t be an issue this year. The Sox are already showing the ability to hit the ball all over the field and are utilizing calculated aggression on the bases.

Additionally, with this group of players, the home runs are definitely going to start coming more frequently. It’s just important that the team is able to get runs on the board with or without the long ball.