Cease, Robert both come up big in White Sox' victory over Astros

If there's one silver lining to the White Sox's putrid start, it's that they're in a truly awful division.

Minnesota, which beat the Cubs 11-1 on Saturday, is in first place at a rather blah 22-18 and is followed by Cleveland (18-21) and Detroit (17-21).

These facts don't comfort Sox manager Pedro Grifol in the least, however. And truth be told, he doesn't even know what the AL Central standings look like.

"You're probably not going to believe this, but I don't really look at the division that much," Grifol said before his team's 3-1 victory over Houston at Guaranteed Rate Field on Saturday. "This is the team that I'm concerned with. We've got to fix our own stuff, our own troubles. We've got to improve in a lot of areas."

Let's begin with pitching because White Sox starters had a 5.97 ERA in the previous 10 games.

Well, Dylan Cease - who helped contribute to that ghastly ERA by allowing 11 runs in his previous two outings - did his part by shutting out the Astros for 6 innings.

Cease impressively escaped a bases-loaded jam in the first inning by getting Jeremy Pena to ground into a force out on a 96-mph fastball. The fifth-year veteran gave up just 4 hits, walked a pair and struck out five while throwing 97 pitches.

"This was really great," said Cease, whose ERA dropped to 4.86. "Finally some of the work going into it paid off. Any time you get a win and hold 'em scoreless, it's fantastic."

Luis Robert Jr.'s improvement from a wretched start continued as well, with the slugger blasting a solo home run (his 10th) in the fourth inning and adding a go-ahead RBI single in the eighth. Robert is now 17-for-41 (.415) with 5 home runs and 13 RBIs in his last 12 games. Before that, he was hitting .213 with 5 HRs and 13 RBIs in 28 games.

"Robert's success is coming from his plate discipline," Grifol said. "His chases are down. He's getting good pitches to hit. He's seeing the ball really well."

Now, while the win was nice for the Sox (14-27), they still had their issues on this night.

The first gaffe came from Tim Anderson, who led off the game by driving a ball deep to right field. Anderson didn't sprint out of the batter's box and was forced to turn on the jets while rounding first base. It ended up costing him as he overslid second base and was tagged out.

Then, in the seventh inning, first baseman Andrew Vaughn got caught in no man's land when he went to field Mauricio Dubon's high chopper between the bag and the mound. Relief pitcher Joe Kelly snared the ball, but nobody could get to first base in time and the Astros tied the game at 1-1.

"The only play you got there as a first baseman is to stay back," Grifol said. "We'll address that. We have covered that before.

"But it's an instinctual play. ... Your instinct's gonna take you that way, but you've got to try to fight back - especially with somebody like Joe on the mound who is extremely athletic and can make that play."

The Sox had 13 hits and snapped a three-game losing streak. Yoan Moncada went 3-for-4 to raise his average to .319, and Andrew Benintendi went 2-for-3 with a walk.

Kendall Graveman picked up his second save.