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The Chicago White Sox had two outs and nobody on in the fifth inning against the Cleveland Guardians.
Luis Robert Jr. began a rally in the most unusual way, reaching on catcher’s interference.
He took off for second on the next pitch and Yoán Moncada lined a single to right. The ball skipped away from Will Brennan, and Robert kept running to score the game’s first run.
The Sox were just warming up.
Gavin Sheets hit a three-run homer and Jake Burger added a two-run homer in the six-run inning as the Sox ran away with an 8-3 victory in front of 18,495 at Guaranteed Rate Field.
“That’s the crazy part about this game, right?” Sox starter Lance Lynn said. “Something as weird as a catcher’s interference can spark an inning like that. But the guys just kept it rolling, kept the pressure on with two outs and the next thing you know, (Guardians starter Shane Bieber is) out of the game.”
The Sox knocked the former Cy Young Award winner out of the game in the fifth. They had seven hits in the inning, six straight with two outs, to open the three-game series on a strong note.
The Sox had 16 hits Tuesday, and all eight runs scored with two outs.
“I’m just happy with our guys,” manager Pedro Grifol said. “They’re just continuing to fight and put together at-bats and not waste any at-bats. That’s the key to this whole thing. We’ve got 27 outs, don’t waste them. Put together good at-bats, whether it’s nobody out or two outs, and that’s what these guys did (Tuesday).”
Tuesday also saw a nice bounce-back performance from Lynn, who allowed three runs, one earned, on seven hits with seven strikeouts and no walks in seven-plus innings.
“I was able to execute pitches early on in at-bats,” Lynn said. “And then we were able to score a bunch of runs there, so I was able to relax and get in a flow after that.”
The right-hander retired the first 11 batters he faced before giving up a single to Josh Naylor with two outs in the fourth. Lynn had allowed at least four runs in each of his five previous starts, including seven runs in five innings on May 10 in Kansas City.
“All in all, all pitches were better,” Lynn said. “I was able to get back and the four-seam was where it needed to be.”
The Sox had two hits in each of the third and fourth innings but came up empty.
They broke through in a big way in the fifth.
Andrew Vaughn followed Moncada’s RBI hit with a single, and both scored on Sheets’ homer. Yasmani Grandal singled, his third hit of the game, and Burger followed with his two-run homer to right.
“That was big,” Sheets said. “You got a matchup like Lance and Bieber going at it. Both of the guys were throwing it really well. So to have that inning was huge for us. The way Lance was throwing the ball, to give him some run support finally and let him do his thing, that was big all around.”
That was it for Bieber, who allowed five earned runs on a career-high 12 hits with four strikeouts in 4⅔ innings.
The Sox found more two-out success an inning later with Vaughn driving in Moncada with a double to make it 7-1. Robert hit a solo homer in the eighth with two outs. It’s his fourth straight game with a home run, becoming the first Sox hitter to accomplish the feat since Matt Davidson from June 12-15, 2017.
Robert leads the American League with 12 homers.
“He got a good pitch up in the zone, and he’s not missing those right now and they’re going a long way,” Grifol said. “He’s shrinking this ballpark. He’s shrinking any ballpark right now.”
Every Sox starter had at least one hit. The key for the team is to build on the momentum as it tries to dig out of a big hole (15-28).
“It’s like we always say, you have to put in the work and go day by day, the results will come,” Burger said. “The talent is in here and the work is in here. We work as hard as we can. (It’s) not trying to put too much pressure on ourselves but have the urgency to go out and play as hard as we can.”
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