Rangers Lose To White Sox
via Texas Rangers
ARLINGTON — The Chicago White Sox put together a big inning of their own Sunday, after being doomed by them in the first two games of their series against the Texas Rangers.
Chicago scored five times in the fifth inning, matching its biggest frame of the season, on its way to a 10-5 victory at Globe Life Park. The win helped the White Sox avoid their first three-game sweep in Texas since 2007.
With the game tied at 2 after Reynaldo Lopez left the bases loaded in the bottom of the fourth, Chicago batted around against Texas ace Cole Hamels and took the lead for good. The White Sox strung together four straight hits to do their damage, and had 14 total on the day to help end a three-game losing streak.
“Everybody contributed, and it’s cool when everybody up and down the lineup is getting hits,” said first baseman Matt Davidson, who had a two-run double in the frame and finished with three hits and three RBIs. “We were able to lay off some of the pitches. When [Hamels] is really effective, he’s able to get that cutter inside, the changeup down and away and the curveball down in the zone. There were a couple of key at-bats to get those early RBIs and chip away. When he made mistakes, we were able to take advantage of it.”
The White Sox got going in the fifth after Adam Engel reached first on a strikeout and wild pitch. Tim Anderson followed with an RBI double to give Chicago a 3-2 lead. Avisail Garcia’s single pushed the margin to 4-2, and two batters later, Davidson hit his two-run double off the wall in left-center field. Catcher Kevan Smith capped the scoring with a bloop single to right.
That outburst proved to be more than enough support for Lopez (4-5), who beat the Rangers in both of his starts against them this year. Lopez scattered seven hits over 6 1/3 innings, allowing just two runs and three walks against six strikeouts. He has now won consecutive starts for the first time this season and had a season-high eight runs of offensive support behind him.
Lopez also saved a tired bullpen by throwing a career-high 114 pitches on a day that had a first-pitch temperature of 97.
“I liked it all,” said Lopez. “All my pitches were working very good. I felt good. The weather was hot, but I was focused. I just tried to not pay attention to the weather. It was good. I came back focused in the whole inning and I executed my pitches.”
The righty had plenty of help from the offense, with the top of the order doing most of the damage. Jose Abreu went 2-for-3 and added three RBIs to push his season total to 50. He put the White Sox up 1-0 in the first with an RBI grounder, extended the lead to 2-0 with an RBI triple in the third and made it 8-2 in the seventh with a sacrifice fly. Garcia went 4-for-5 with a two doubles, triple and three runs scored. Anderson also had two hits and scored twice.
“The last couple of games before this, [the Rangers] have been able to tack on runs and do everything they needed to do,” Chicago manager Rick Renteria said. “Today, we tacked on some runs in situations a little more efficiently. They didn’t try to press. I think they stayed within themselves, got pitches they could handle and generated the offense they did.”
