Chicago White Sox ride an 8-run 1st inning to a 9-1 rout of the Kansas City Royals for their 3rd win in 4 games: ‘It was really impressive’

LaMond Pope, Chicago Tribune
·4 min read
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Starter Lance Lynn had one thought as he watched the Chicago White Sox score run after run in the top of the first Saturday against the Kansas City Royals.

“Don’t screw it up,” Lynn said. “They spot you eight in the first and I’ve got to make sure I get zeros on the board.”

The Sox scored eight runs in the first and cruised to a 9-1 victory in front of 15,895 at Kauffman Stadium.

“Best string of at-bats that we’ve had all season,” Sox manager Tony La Russa said. “It was really impressive.”

Tim Anderson, Nick Madrigal and Yoán Moncada each had two hits in the inning. Anderson and Madrigal singled twice. Moncada had a two-run double and an RBI single.

Yasmani Grandal had a sacrifice fly, Andrew Vaughn drove in a run with a double and later scored on a triple from Leury García and Danny Mendick followed García with a two-run home run to left.

“To catch a barrel like that and hit one good, especially here in Kansas City, it was nice,” said Mendick, who made his first major-league appearance in the outfield, starting in right. “This ballpark plays big. It’s a big park, so you hit one out of here, it’s like, all right, you’ve got a little something behind it.”

Royals starter Daniel Lynch allowed eight runs on seven hits in two-thirds of an inning. The Sox had nine hits in the inning.

According to STATS, it was the first time the Sox scored eight runs in the first inning since April 21, 2002, when they scored eight against the Detroit Tigers.

It was the first time the Sox scored at least eight runs in the first inning of a road game since June 18, 2000, when they scored nine against the New York Yankees at Yankee Stadium.

“It was fun,” Mendick said.

It also was the most runs the Sox have scored in the first inning against the Royals and the first time the Sox had three players record multiple hits in the same inning since Sept. 17, 2007, when Josh Fields, Jerry Owens and Danny Richar accomplished the feat in the fifth inning at Kansas City.

“As long as we make great contact, our offense is in great shape,” La Russa said.

Grandal made history while matching a career high with four walks. It gave him 13 walks in his last four games, which according to STATS match the major-league record in a four-game span since 1901, tying Bryce Harper from May 5-8, 2016 and May 7-10, 2016 and Babe Ruth from June 12-15, 1930.

Lynn benefited from the first-inning offensive outburst.

The right-hander allowed one hit, struck out six and walked four in five scoreless innings as the American League Central-leading Sox (18-13) won for the third time in four games.

“When you have an eight-run lead before you even throw a pitch, that’s huge,” Lynn said. “You have to reassess and say it’s 0-0. I have to make sure I go out here and do everything I can to do my job and make sure I don’t give up any runs and get them back in the dugout.

“When you look at that run support, it’s easy to say I have wiggle room. You start doing that things start getting crazy. The four walks, I wasn’t quite as locked in and sharp as I needed to be, but the lucky thing I had was I had eight runs to work with, and I was able to pitch around it.”

Lynn continued a stretch of strong pitching by the starters, who have combined for 25⅓ consecutive scoreless innings in the last five games. It’s the team’s longest scoreless streak by the starting pitchers since a run of 26⅓ innings across parts of four games from July 19-23, 2010.

“We are not afraid to get after each other and make sure that everybody is doing their job and make sure that we are trying to push each other from start in to start out, whether it’s talking about game plans and what we see and how we see guys attacking things,” Lynn said. “We are keeping each other accountable.”