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| Tim Anderson |
The White Sox shortstop hit a game-winning home run in the bottom of the ninth inning Friday night, and he punctuated the moment with a bat flip similar to the one that provoked a benches-clearing incident with the Royals on April 17.
Nope, he isn't changing his ways.
The home run capped a 12-11 victory over the Detroit Tigers, and the Sox went on to sweep a snow-abbreviated, two-game series. Here's a look back at the weekend that was:
Friday, April 26
White Sox 12, Tigers 11: Coming into the game, you figured the recipe for a Sox victory would include a quality start by Carlos Rodon. You would be wrong. Rodon pitched terrible, giving up eight earned runs, including three homers, in three-plus innings.
After the top of the fifth inning, the Sox trailed, 9-2. But they stormed back with two runs in the fifth inning, five in the sixth inning and two more in the seventh.
It should have been three in the seventh. Jose Abreu hit what should have been a three-run homer, but he passed Anderson on the bases rounding first. He was called out and credited with a two-run single.
That was a dumb play, but nevertheless, Abreu had a great night -- 4 for 5 with five RBIs, including a home run that actually counted during the five-run sixth. Yonder Alonso and Jose Rondon also homered for the Sox, and Anderson totaled four hits.
Anderson connected on the first pitch he saw in the bottom of the ninth, a hanging slider from reliever Joe Jimenez (1-1), and sent it into the left-field seats to break an 11-11 tie.
That made a winner of reliever Alex Colome (1-0), who worked a scoreless ninth.
All that said, we might have buried the lead here. Rookie left fielder Eloy Jimenez was injured in the third inning when he crashed into the wall chasing a home run hit by Detroit catcher Grayson Greiner. The future of the rebuild hung in the balance as Jimenez writhed about on the warning track in pain.
Diagnosis: high ankle sprain. Jimenez will be re-evaluated in two weeks. That means he'll likely be out at least a month. He's lucky he didn't break his leg, and this is why I recently called for him to receive more DH at-bats.
Saturday, April 27
Tigers at White Sox, ppd. snow: I was holding tickets to this game, and I'm glad it didn't happen. We had a freak late-April snowstorm in Chicago. It was that heavy, wet snow that leaves slush on the road.
The 6:10 p.m. game was postponed by 10:30 a.m. Good decision. You can't play baseball when there's a winter storm warning.
Sunday, April 28
White Sox 4, Tigers 1: Reynaldo Lopez tossed the most dominating six innings of his career, totaling 14 strikeouts against three walks. He allowed only one unearned run on two hits.
The right-hander's fastball overpowered Detroit hitters. Thirteen of the 14 strikeouts came on the four-seamer, and they were evenly distributed. Lopez (2-3) struck out the side in the second and sixth innings, and he had two strikeouts in each of the other four innings he pitched.
Instead of having to play from behind, the Sox took the lead in the first inning for a change. Welington Castillo's two-out, two-strike double with the bases loaded gave the South Siders a 2-0 lead.
Detroit nicked Lopez for an unearned run in the second, and the game remained 2-1 until the seventh. Matthew Boyd pitched well for the Tigers through six, but the Sox scored one in the seventh and one in the eighth against the Detroit bullpen.
A squeeze bunt from Leury Garcia plated the run in the seventh. Yolmer Sanchez added a sacrifice fly in the eighth.
Jace Fry, Kelvin Herrera and Colome each worked a scoreless inning of relief. Colome picked up his fifth save.
Each reliever struck out two, so Sox pitchers totaled 20 strikeouts for the game. Yeah, that's a team record for a nine-inning game.
Next up for the Sox (11-14): a three-game series against the Baltimore Orioles, starting Monday night.
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