Suddenly, the Royals no longer own Jose Quintana

Jose Quintana

White Sox pitcher Jose Quintana has lost 50 games over his five-plus seasons in the major leagues. Nine of those losses are against the Kansas City Royals.

Coming into the 2017 season, Quintana was 1-9 with a 4.32 ERA in 22 starts against Kansas City.

With that information in hand, it's somewhat surprising that the left-hander has won two games against the Royals in the past week. Quintana followed up a 10-strikeout performance in his previous outing with eight shutout innings Tuesday, leading the Sox to a 6-0 win over Kansas City.

Quintana struck out seven in this game and allowed only four hits -- all singles. He didn't walk anybody until the eighth inning, when he walked two, and that was the only inning where the Royals had a runner reach scoring position. Kansas City placed the leadoff batter on only once in eight innings, and that runner was quickly erased on a 5-4-3 double play in the third.

This was a dominant performance for Quintana (2-4) against a Royals team that has been struggling offensively. Kansas City (8-17) has lost 10 out of 11 games and has scored a league-worst 69 runs through its first 25 games. Safe to say, 2.76 runs a game isn't going to cut it in the American League. The Sox have to hope the Kansas City bats remain quiet for two more games before they get out of town.

Quintana's numbers against the Royals this season? 2-0 with a 1.29 ERA with 17 strikeouts in 14 innings.

Meanwhile, Royals starter Danny Duffy (2-2)  has seen his fortunes against the Sox take a turn for the worse. The hard-throwing lefty has always had success against Chicago. Coming into this season, he was 6-2 with a 3.20 ERA lifetime vs. the Sox.

But Tuesday, he allowed six runs on 10 hits over five innings. Duffy is 0-2 with a 11.17 ERA with only five strikeouts and four walks in 9.2 innings against the Sox this year.

Avisail Garcia continued his hot streak for Chicago, reaching base in all four plate appearances. He was 2 for 2 with a walk, a HBP, two runs scored and an RBI. The Sox also got a three-hit game from Yolmer Sanchez. Geovany Soto added two hits and two RBIs.

Amusingly, the Sox enter Wednesday's action still atop the AL Central, although four teams are within a half-game of each other. The Sox are 14-11, Minnesota is 13-11, and Cleveland and Detroit both are 14-12. No team has distinguished itself so far in the division race.