Viciedo powers White Sox to victory
When Dayan Viciedo made contact on a 2-0 pitch from Mariners relief pitcher Kameron Loe with one out in the 10th inning Sunday at U.S. Cellular Field, outfielder Michael Morse didn’t even move.
The baseball cleared the left-field fence in the blink of an eye, and it provided a quick end to extra innings.
It was another home run for the White Sox — no surprise there — and the first career walk-off blast for Viciedo.
In the season’s first six games, the Sox have relied on homers to score 15 of their 22 runs. After Sunday’s 4-3 victory over Seattle, manager Robin Ventura was offering no apologies.
“We like home runs,” Ventura said. “There has to be a balance at some point, but they (Mariners) scored on home runs today, too. We have guys who have the ability to do it, and you take it.”
The Cell is a launchpad, particularly in the summer months, so it’s a bit surprising that the White Sox went deep 11 times on the six-game opening homestand.
Before Viciedo launched his second home run of the season, Adam Dunn erased Seattle’s early lead with a 2-run shot in the first inning and Alex Rios homered for the third straight game, a solo shot to tie the game at 3-3 in the seventh.
“Sometimes you’re going to score runs with homers,” Rios said. “We’re here to score runs any way you can.”
Again, Ventura and his players want to manufacture more runs as the season advances, but this is an offense built on power. And judging by the raucous applause from Sunday’s crowd of 18,708, the more home runs the better.
Viciedo was just happy to contribute something, considering he was hitless in 12 straight at-bats before helping the Sox take two of three from Seattle.
“I feel very happy,” the White Sox’ left fielder said through a translator. “It was my turn to do something to help the team, and I’m very happy with what happened.”
So was Chris Sale, who delivered another quality start but struggled a bit while allowing 3 runs on 5 hits in 7 innings. Morse hit a 2-run homer off the Sox’ ace in the first inning, and Kendrys Morales put the Mariners ahead 3-2 with a solo home run off Sale in the sixth.
“It was fine,” Sale said of his outing. “I obviously started out of the gate a little rough, but that’s the beautiful thing about this team. Not only do we work hard for ourselves, but we work hard for each other.
“Alexei (Ramirez) coming up that (first) inning and leading it off with a double and Dunner putting one in the seats. We are here to do our job but also pick each other up. I think that happened throughout the entire game, people picking each other up.”
In the end, it was Viciedo who lifted the White Sox to their fourth win in six games.
“I feel great,” Viciedo said. “I feel prepared. I’m going to take it one day at a time. I started a little slow, but I feel real good mentally. I feel prepared and ready to go.”
If that means supplying offense with the longball, so be it.
“Obviously, they talk about living and dying by the home run, but we have a group of guys that can put the bat on the ball and do some amazing things,” Sale said. “For now, it’s working and we are just going to run with it and take this out to Washington.”
sgregor@dailyherald.com