Starting with Oakland, continuing with their own, and now stretching to Minnesota, the White Sox have ruined every home opener they have laid eyes on. A sleepy, tight, but solid enough 4-1 pitching clinic against the severely snakebit Twins now has the Sox on their best start to a season since they went 5-2 to open 2012 (before immediately losing three-straight).
1. Jose Quintana was on cruise control without actually being dominant. He nibbled a bit excessively given that he didn’t have his best command (three walks), but escaped from a fourth inning jam with just a single run across when a close call gave Miguel Sano a leadoff walk, and a Trevor Plouffe double pushed him to third. Quintana escaped the sixth inning entirely by getting a shallow fly out from Byung Ho Park and a weak grounder from Eddie Rosario to strand Joe Mauer at third.
Following on the heels of Chris Sale on Saturday, it was another case of a Sox starter pitching in cold weather and very much looking the part, but Quintana at least lowered his ERA (and got a win?!) in the process.
2. Austin Jackson wound up serving as the offensive hero, despite missing on a grand slam in the fourth inning by a few inches when his drive curved foul. He recovered to drill a two-run single up the middle and stake Quintana to a 3-0 lead that was never relinquished.
Jackson also struck out twice and is hitting all of .273/.304/.318 on the season, but between his series of booming drives hit in vain on Saturday and his solid approach, he could probably help out higher than ninth in the order.
3. Matt Albers has stretched his scoreless streak to 24 games stretching back to last August. Today’s scoreless inning, facilitated in large part by Kurt Suzuki inexplicably popping up a bunt into a double play, kickstarted three scoreless frames for the bullpen capped off by Nate Jones and David Robertson. Albers allowed two hits and generally missed his spots, but 24 scoreless appearances in a row do not come without a little massaging.
4. Everyone in the top-six of the Sox lineup reached base twice, including two hits apiece for Todd Frazier, Melky Cabrera and the previously ice cold Brett Lawrie. Which is to say the Sox went 2-for-10 with runners in scoring position and stranded 12 and still cruised to victory.
5. The Twins look really, bad, guys. They were picked to finish last by many even with the expectation of a capable lineup done in by an awful starting rotation. Instead they have had mostly decent if thoroughly unexceptional contributions from their rotation, but every hitter save for Mauer and Eduardo Escobar have started out ice cold. Park looks overmatched, and their defense isn’t setting on fire what isn’t already burned. An Escobar error keyed the fourth inning outburst, and Rosario misplayed a ball off the bat from Frazier so badly it went from a potential single to left field to a double that scored Jose Abreu from first in the ninth for insurance.
The Twins are now 0-7 and not showing strong signs of stopping.
Team Record: 5-2
Next game is Wednesday at 7:10pm CT on WPWR for TV and WLS for radio.
Lead Photo Credit: Bruce Kluckhohn // USA Today Sports Images