Only three teams in the American League have a worse record than the Chicago White Sox.
However, the White Sox are confident a recent hot stretch — and a spate of exciting wins at home — represents who they really are as the summer approaches.
The White Sox will try to continue their surge on Saturday afternoon when they play host to the Miami Marlins in the middle game of a three-game interleague series.
Michael Kopech (3-5, 4.33 ERA) is scheduled to start for the White Sox against Sandy Alcantara (2-5, 5.07) in a battle of right-handers.
The White Sox earned another walk-off win on Friday in the series opener, when Luis Robert Jr. laced the game-winning single in the ninth inning of a 2-1 victory.
The win was the sixth in seven games for the White Sox. Chicago is 21-15 since May 1, the best record in the division and the fourth-best mark in the American League.
The White Sox are also showing a flair for the dramatic at home.
Chicago’s past three home games ended with walk-off victories, and all three came in vastly different ways. Yoan Moncada scored on a wild pitch in the 10th inning of a 2-1 win over Detroit on June 3, one day before Jake Burger hit a ninth-inning grand slam to vault the hosts to a 6-2 win over the Tigers.
The White Sox’s six walk-off wins this season are the most in the majors.
“We’ve been on a good stretch lately,” said Chicago’s Dylan Cease, who allowed one run over six innings on Friday. “We’ve played really well in all facets of the game. When we play like that, we’re going to be very hard to beat.”
The loss snapped a six-game winning streak for the Marlins, who came within a victory of matching their longest winning stretch of the past 10 years.
Miami will try to start another streak behind Alcantara, the reigning National League Cy Young Award winner who is enduring a rough season. Alcantara allowed five runs — all in the third inning — over seven innings and didn’t factor into the decision as the Marlins beat the Oakland Athletics 7-5 on Sunday.
Outside of the third inning, Alcantara faced the minimum. He retired the first six batters he faced on 13 pitches and erased his only subsequent baserunner — Ramon Laureano, who singled leading off the sixth — by inducing a double-play grounder.
Alcantara struck out seven and walked none. It was just the third time this season he didn’t walk a batter.
“Other than that (the third inning), he pitched really good,” Marlins manager Skip Schumaker said. “After the first two innings, I thought he was going to throw a complete game on 90 pitches, the way he was throwing.”
Alcantara has never opposed the White Sox.
Kopech didn’t factor into the decision on Sunday, when he gave up two runs over seven innings in Chicago’s win over the Tigers. He has never faced the Marlins.
–Field Level Media
