High-powered Yankees torch White Sox again, 10-4
For the crowd of 28,877 at Guaranteed Rate Field Friday night, the weather was great and so were the tunes and postgame fireworks.
The actual game? Not so much.
It was Rock 'n' Roll Night on the South Side, which was actually a bad combination for the White Sox.
In a 10-4 loss to the high-octane Yankees, the Sox were equal parts rocked and rolled for the second straight night.
New York launched 4 home runs while winning 15-7 Thursday in the opener of a four-game series.
In Game 2, the Yankees hit 4 more homers while improving their record to 24-8 - the best in the major leagues.
"We got torched today," White Sox manager Tony La Russa said. "It was almost always missed location. You would see the catcher (Reese McGuire) setting up the pitcher in a different place, and missing. That's what a hitter is supposed to do. They punish it, and they did."
Much like Dylan Cease on Thursday, Sox starter Vince Velasquez had his hands full with New York's potent lineup.
"I didn't come out as hot as I expected," Velasquez said. "The last two outings have been really locked in, it just seems like I was kind of out of sync right from the beginning."
Velasquez labored through 5 innings and gave up 8 runs on 7 hits, 3 of them home runs.
"This team is very selective when it comes to finding what they like and if you don't execute, they're going to capitalize," Velasquez said. "Look at the standings, look at what they're doing. They're going to ambush and when you don't have your best stuff, it makes things a little bit harder.
"This is very disappointing, especially since Cease had a rough outing just as well. You kind of want to come back and have an impact and kind of at least be a threat. It just seemed like they were a little bit more comfortable and they kind of zoned me up pretty well and they capitalized on the pitches I mistakenly threw."
Outside of Gavin Sheets' third home run in his last four games, a 2-run shot in the sixth inning, it was an uneventful evening for the White Sox.
The crowd did perk up in the first inning, when the Sox loaded the bases against Yankees ace Gerrit Cole with one out.
They didn't score, and after Sheets went down swinging for the second out, N.Y. catcher Jose Trevino tried picking Tim Anderson off at third base.
Josh Donaldson made contact with the White Sox's shortstop as he dove back into the bag safely, and Anderson gave him a shove.
Both benches and bullpens emptied, but that was the extent of the flare-up.
When he was with the Twins last season, Donaldson confronted Lucas Giolito in the Guaranteed Rate Field players' parking lot after the Sox's starting pitcher called him a "bleeping pest."