White Sox 12, A’s 0: Today was a big hit

Mar 25, 2023 - 12:01 AM

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Were you looking for offense yesterday? The White Sox seemingly were saving it for Friday’s game against the Oakland Athletics, as the Chicago club scored 12 runs on 15 hits this afternoon in Mesa.

There was a lot of offense in today’s game, but before we get to that, it is worth noting that Dylan Cease had an ideal Cactus League finale. He went all six innings he was scheduled for, allowing no runs on four hits, three walks, and five strikeouts. This was the type of solid outing that Cease needed to get under his belt ahead of his Opening Day start.

Joe Kelly, Aaron Bummer, and Kendall Graveman each pitched an inning of scoreless ball as well, combining for five strikeouts.

The White Sox came out of the gates ready to hit. They scored four runs on six hits to start the first inning. This was led off by a Tim Anderson single, who scored on a home run by Yoán Moncada.

Luis Robert Jr. got the third hit of the game, on a double to left field, followed by an Eloy Jiménez single. Romy González hit a sacrifice fly to bring Robert home for a third run. Elvis Andrus finished the scoring in the first inning by singling to score Jiménez.

The White Sox scored another four runs in the top of the fourth inning kick-started by Moncada reaching on a two-out throwing error. Had the play been made, the inning would have ended, but it was not — and Chicago capitalized. Moncada came around to score on Robert’s second double of the day. Jiménez and Robert traded places one at-bat later when Jiménez doubled Robert home. Romy, who was Oakland starter Kyle Muller’s last batter of the day, extended the White Sox lead to eight with a two-run home run to right-center field.

Four seemed to be the lucky number today, as the White Sox scored another four in the top of the seventh inning. Leury García hit an RBI double to get the scoring started, and he later came around to score on a Seby Zavala single. Luis Meises completed the team cycle with an RBI triple to score Zavala for the 12th run of the day.

There may have been a lot of hitting today, but I would be remiss if I did not mention it was an all-or-nothing day, as there were also a lot of strikeouts. In fact, White Sox batters had more strikeouts than hits today, 16-15.

Overall, it was a nice start to the weekend for the White Sox. Chicago will be at Goodyear Ballpark tomorrow to take on the Reds at 8:05 p.m. CST, and I will be back here with a third straight recap!

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