Sox long day ends with doubleheader split against Tigers
DETROIT - Dylan Cease has 2 victories so far in this, the right-hander's rookie season.
Both have been against the bumbling Detroit Tigers.
Cease pitched 5 solid innings and Jose Abreu homered and drove in 3 runs to lift the White Sox to a 5-3 victory over the Tigers on Tuesday in the first game of a doubleheader. Welington Castillo also homered for the Sox, and Jake Rogers went deep for Detroit.
The White Sox lost the second game 10-6 after a long rain delay.
Cease (2-4) allowed 2 runs and 7 hits, striking out six with 1 walk. He also defeated Detroit on July 3 before losing his next 4 starts.
"I think he continues to improve," manager Rick Renteria said. "Obviously we'd like to get him to the point where he's more efficient and we can get him deeper into the games, but right now as he continues to learn, we'll take it."
This was obviously a favorable matchup. The Tigers are 10-45 since the start of June.
Three relievers finished for the White Sox. Alex Colome allowed a run in the ninth but held on for his 22nd save in 23 chances.
Daniel Norris (3-9) allowed 4 runs in 5⅔ innings.
Abreu gave the White Sox a 1-0 lead with a first-inning homer, his 24th of the season. That opposite-field drive came on the 11th pitch of the at-bat.
"It was a battle," Norris said. "I tried to mix in a two-seam there and sort of just left it middle. He put a decent swing on it and it went over the wall. I wasn't executing great in the first. I think if I make my pitches there, the at-bat's over."
Adam Engel hit an RBI double in the second before the Tigers rallied. Brandon Dixon tripled and scored for Detroit in the third to make it 2-1, then Rogers tied it with a fourth-inning homer.
Abreu put the White Sox up 3-2 with an RBI double in the fifth. Castillo, activated from the family medical emergency leave list before the game, went deep in the sixth to give Chicago a 2-run lead again. Castillo was the 26th man for the White Sox for the doubleheader. Reliever Matt Hall was the 26th man for Detroit.
The White Sox added another run in the ninth on Abreu's RBI single. Harold Castro hit a run-scoring single of his own for Detroit to make it 5-3.
In the second game, Miguel Cabrera had 3 hits and scored twice to help the Tigers get past the White Sox and gain a split of the doubleheader.
Drew VerHagen (2-2) allowed 1 run in 5 innings for Detroit, then left the game after a 61-minute rain delay. White Sox starter Hector Santiago (1-1) allowed 4 earned runs in 4⅔ innings.
Detroit scored 2 runs in the second, then Cabrera led off the bottom of the third with a double and scored on a sacrifice fly by Dawel Lugo to put the Tigers up 3-0. Cabrera led off the Detroit fifth with a single and eventually came home on a single by Travis Demeritte.
Gordon Beckham added an RBI single to make it 5-1, and the rain delay began before the fifth inning ended.
Jordy Mercer hit a 2-run homer for Detroit in the seventh to make it 7-2.
Trevor Rosenthal came on for the Tigers in the eighth, retired only one batter and had 3 runs charged to him. Abreu came up with two on and the score 7-5, but he hit a weak grounder to third against Buck Farmer.
The Tigers then scored 3 runs of their own in the bottom of the inning.
Movie reference:
MLB.com released player nicknames that will go on uniforms during Players' Weekend from Aug. 23-25. White Sox reliever Evan Marshall has chosen "FORGETTING SARAH" - a reference to the movie.
"It's 'Forgetting Sarah Marshall' - it's a hilarious movie," he said. "I thought, if they can squeeze it on a jersey, it would be a funny one."
Trainer's room:
Detroit put infielder Jeimer Candelario (left-thumb sprain) on the 10-day injured list and recalled infielder Dawel Lugo from Toledo. Manager Ron Gardenhire did not sound optimistic about Candelario. "His hand's not good," Gardenhire said. "It's not broken or anything but he's definitely not going to be available. It's going to be a while."