White Sox happy with opening month, but have room to improve
Facing the reigning American League Cy Young Award winner was not an ideal way to close out the opening month of the season.
The White Sox actually fared pretty well against Shane Bieber Friday night, scoring 3 runs over 6 innings against the Indians' ace starting pitcher.
But Cleveland put up 4 runs against Sox starter Dallas Keuchel in the fourth inning and went on to win 5-3 at Guaranteed Rate Field.
A popular pick to represent the AL in the World Series this season, the White Sox went 14-11 in April and are running second in the division behind the Royals.
"I think we're in a great spot," said shortstop Tim Anderson, who missed nine games with a hamstring injury. "Considering we're missing Eloy (Jimenez) and a couple guys, (Adam) Engel, I think we're in a great spot. A lot of guys have stepped up. Kudos to Yerm (in Mercedes), he's stepped up and he's been huge to this lineup and he's continued to do it every night.
"So I think the first month was a good one. Hopefully, we continue to build off this and learn from our mistakes this first month. Hopefully next month will be a lot cleaner and hopefully be better."
Keuchel was hoping for a win in the series opener against the Indians that would have put the Sox on a pace for 90 wins this season.
That was a reasonable goal, even with Bieber on the mound, but Cleveland scored 4 runs on 3 hits and 2 walks off Keuchel in the third inning to take control of the game.
"Outside of some lost feel in the third inning, I think we come out of that game with a win," Keuchel said. "You can't do that in the big leagues, and I paid the price for it and ultimately we lost. As much as I felt good tonight, it was just very frustrating there for about 10, 12 pitches in the third, so that was it."
The White Sox were pretty good in the first month, but they still have ample room to improve.
"I like where we're at," Keuchel said. "By no circumstance are we playing the greatest ball we can possibly play. I like to see more running on all cylinders towards the all-star break. Under no circumstance have we played our greatest ball and we're still (14)-11.
"We're going to be playing a lot better ball when the weather warms up. And this is a six-month season again, so that's really the wild card that we really have to figure out and try to maintain a lot of health. It's a cat-and-mouse game I think and we're just going to have to wait and see how this thing plays out."