White Sox pound Guardians, look to get rolling in right direction
The White Sox have got to start somewhere, so Tuesday night's game against Cleveland was as good of a place as any.
"To think you're going to run a 20-game (win) streak in Major League Baseball is unrealistic," manager Pedro Grifol said. "So personally, I like to take it day-by-day. We've got a strong opponent that plays the game really hard and we've got to match them on that field and we've got to outplay them. Today is an important game. And once we're done with this one, tomorrow's the most important game of the year."
The Sox did take care of business in the game at hand against the Guardians, winning 8-3 at Guaranteed Rate Field behind Lance Lynn's best start of the season and one impressive offensive inning.
With two outs in the fifth, the White Sox erupted for 6 runs against Cleveland ace Shane Bieber. After Luis Robert was awarded first base on catcher's interference, there were 6 straight hits in the surge, highlighted by Gavin Sheets' 3-run homer followed by Jake Burger's 2-run shot.
"That felt good," Sheets said. "I got one to hit and it was a big swing there. It was big. Obviously, you have a matchup like Lance and Bieber going at it and both guys were throwing the ball really well. To have that inning was huge for us."
Lynn, who came in with baseball's highest ERA (7.51) among qualified starters, pitched 7 innings and allowed 3 runs (1 earned) on 7 hits.
The right-hander had 7 strikeouts and no walks, lowering his ERA to 6.66.
"I was able to execute pitches early on and we were able to score a bunch of runs there," Lynn said. "So I was able to relax and kind of just get into a flow after that."
Luis Robert launched a solo homer in the eighth inning, becoming the first Sox hitter to go deep in four straight games since Matt Davidson in 2017.
Despite errors from catcher Yasmani Grandal and shortstop Tim Anderson, it was one of the Sox's better showings of the season. Given their record (15-28), that's not saying much.
Then again, it'll have to do for now.
"We are where we are," Grifol said. "We've got to go out there and play good baseball. And it's OK that everything is magnified because we dug this hole for ourselves. So I'm OK with it. We've just got to dig. We've got to dig down deep and we've got to will ourselves to become the team that we know we can be."
Tuesday's win over Cleveland was a good start.
"When you look at where we're at, we put ourselves in a little bit of a hole," Lynn said. "We have to take it one game, one series, but that's how you have to do it anyways, really. You start looking ahead for series or stretches and stuff like that, that's usually when this game kicks you in the (butt).
"Hopefully, we stay in that mindset, one series at a time, one game at a time."