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CHICAGO – The White Sox seemingly are tired of losing to the Astros this season.
After starting the season with five straight losses to the leaders of the American League West, AL Central’s top team exorcised those bad memories with a 10-1 win on Saturday night in front of 34,304 spectators at the Guaranteed Rate Field. .
“We just needed to get more points than them. We could have won a game by one point, ”said White Sox manager Tony La Russa. “We just had to beat them.”
Lucas Giolito (8-6) has been masterful, making his fifth career full game and the first since leaving the Pirates on August 25 last season. He allowed the double with an out by Michael Brantley in the first, then put out the next 22 batters before Abraham Toro’s two-out homer in the eighth ended the shutout.
Giolito struck out eight without a goal on 107 shots, while registering 17 swings and misses, per Statcast. He wasn’t happy with his performance in the first half, so he stepped away from baseball during the All-Star break and took a trip to Lake Tahoe with his wife. Giolito then came back in force to start the second half.
Still, the White Sox right-hander, who lowered his ERA to 3.90, was actually a bit eclipsed by the five homers hit in support by his teammates.
“I like our team, because we will recover,” said Giolito. “Today was the night it all happened. We were able to get that momentum going early on, a few runs and [kept] crossing it for nine innings.
Jake Burger topped the flow of homers in the seventh, when the rookie logged in for his first career homerun against Austin Pruitt on his home debut. The ball traveled 456 feet to left field at an exit speed of 115.2 mph, and a clear smile crossed Burger’s face shortly after he connected and started his trot around the bases.
After missing three years due to a pair of left Achilles ruptures and the COVID-19 pandemic, Burger earned that smile and then some by logging in in front of his family and a number of friends who did. the drive from Saint-Louis.
“I was floating around those bases for sure,” said Burger, who traded a signed bat and ball to retrieve the homerun ball. “As soon as I hit it, I’m like ‘Oh, let’s go’ in my head. That’s when I cracked a smile. You think about that growing up and when you’re little, hitting a punch. circuit in a big league and all that. Nothing like that. It was a great experience.
“It’s absolutely wonderful to see what he does,” said Giolito de Burger, who is 0.400 with three RBIs. “First home run of many. Glad to have him here.
José Abreu’s three-run homerun in the sixth was the 214th of his career, placing him tied with Hall of Famer Carlton Fisk for fourth place on the franchise’s all-time list. Harold Baines is next at 221 for Abreu. His three RBIs gave him 69 points on the season and 740 for his career, tying Nellie Fox for ninth all-time on the White Sox run producer list.
Tim Anderson, Zack Collins and Gavin Sheets also scored a homerun, with Anderson extending his hitting streak to 14 games and his scoring streak to 10 games. Anderson missed a triple to hit for the round, admitting he thought he would treble all the way on his last strike in the seventh and trying to put the ball along the right field line.
“But that didn’t happen,” Anderson said with a smile. “So what? We continue.”
This same attitude shines through for the White Sox (55-36) in this particular series against the Astros. Overall, they’ve won six of their last seven and maintained an 8-game lead over the Indians, and even after being outscored by a 37-9 margin in those five losses to the Astros, this talented team doesn’t ‘was not going to be closed. down.
“They beat us [five] Games. You think we’ll let them beat us [six] Games? No, ”Anderson said. “We’re definitely going to come out and at least try to stop the bleeding and get one.” That’s what we did tonight.
“We have an [chance] do something really special. For us to beat a ball club like that, it’s a very good ball club. That we come here and can blow them up is definitely a positive on our end. Now we know what we can do, and now we just have to keep pushing and be able to have the same focus to move forward. “
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