Luis Robert and Jake Burger homered to support five strong innings from Touki Toussaint as the host Chicago White Sox stopped a six-game skid with a 3-0 victory against the Cleveland Guardians on Friday night.
The White Sox earned their first victory since July 20.
Robert launched his team-leading 29th home run to open the scoring in the first inning, connecting against Guardians starter Xzavion Curry after Tim Anderson grounded into a double play.
Curry settled down after that, and the White Sox had started to struggle against reliever Daniel Norris before Burger went deep with one out in the sixth to continue his homer binge. Burger has homered in three consecutive games and has six homers in his past 12 games overall. He has 25 this season.
Oscar Colas provided the final margin with an RBI single in the eighth. Gregory Santos navigated a walk and a hit-by-pitch in the ninth to notch his second save, striking out Oscar Gonzalez to end the game.
Toussaint pitched five shutout innings to earn the victory, his first with Chicago since the club claimed him off waivers from Cleveland in June.
Toussaint (1-3) limited his former team to three hits with one walk and four strikeouts while throwing 52 of his 83 pitches for strikes. Friday marked the right-hander’s third straight start of at least five innings. He pitched one inning of scoreless relief Wednesday night.
Cleveland loaded the bases with one out in the first on a walk, a fielding error and a single, but Toussaint worked out of trouble by inducing Josh Bell to hit a double-play grounder to second base.
The Guardians grounded into another double play in the seventh.
Josh Naylor’s sixth-inning double was Cleveland’s lone extra-base hit of the game, and part of a 3-for-4 day.
Curry (3-1) spaced one run and two hits in three innings with three walks. He did not record a strikeout.
Andrew Benintendi had two hits for the White Sox.
Chicago leads the season series with Cleveland 5-3. The Guardians have scored more than three runs against the White Sox just once during that span — in Thursday’s 6-3 win in the series opener.
–Field Level Media
