Remember all those dinks who questioned putting freshly promoted and 22-year-old Tim Anderson at the top of the lineup? After the Sox scored 18 runs in the first two games with their new lead off man, Anderson scored three times to give the Sox a narrow victory in the rubber match.
1. The White Sox were allergic to the big hit for most of the night (0-for-10 with runners in scoring position) but were very proficient in the manufacturing business. Anderson singled and scored on a Melky Cabrera sacrifice fly in the first. He tripled to lead off the fifth and scored on an Adam Eaton groundout to tie the game at 3-3, and singled, advanced to third on an Eaton ground rule double and scored on a Todd Frazier sacrifice fly to put the Sox ahead in the seventh.
Tigers starter Mike Pelfrey was typically allergic to whiffs, but his only strikeout of the night came to shut down Avisail Garcia in the fourth, which served to help strand Dioner Navarro at third after Frazier had already come around on yet another sacrifice fly.
Cabrera’s strikeout in the seventh, to keep that rally at only one run, was the only other Sox whiff of the whole night.
2. The exclamation point finally came with one out in the eighth, when J.B Shuck hammered a triple off Buck Farmer into the right center gap to plate Garcia from first and give the beleaguered Sox pen an insurance run.
Nate Jones pitched a perfect eighth, and David Robertson overcame more shakiness and got Jose Iglesias to ground out to second with the tying run on first for his 16th save.
3. Chris Sale‘s efforts to thwart the entire league with one hand tied behind his back retained a lot more charm when he had some of the best results in the league to back up his mad genius. He can still do more at 80 percent effort than most, but without his hardest slider , less appearances of his wipeout change and tinkering in the low-90s, a bad slate of command makes him vulnerable.
Wednesday night that slate came in the third inning. Sale allowed four straight hits to open the frame, and while J.B. Shuck saved a run by gunning down James McCann at the plate on a Mike Aviles single, Jose Iglesias–Jose Iglesias!–uickly followed up by launching an opposite field bomb off a mistake fastball to give the Tigers a 2-1 lead.
Ian Kinsler followed up immediately by smacking a double into the left-center gap, and came around to score after Nick Castellanos took umbrage at Miguel Cabrera being intentionally walked–in the third!–in front of him.
4. But there’s no denying he finished strong. Sale delivered four more scoreless innings, including a perfect seventh despite coming in with 104 pitches. He recorded five of his seven strikeouts on the night after that nightmarish third inning, dragged his ERA back under 3.00 on the season, and gave a crucial test to a bullpen that had been rode hard and put away wet in the first two nights of this series.
5. Chris Sale now has an MLB-leading 11 victories, which is no small feat considering that’s one third of his team’s total wins, and he’s playing for a club that has now won two of their last 11 series.
Anderson and Eaton combined for 14 hits in this series.
Team Record: 33-33
Next game is Friday at 6:10pm CT at Cleveland on CSN