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Sox drop rain-shortened opener to Tigers
- Updated: July 22, 2016
CHICAGO — Ian Kinsler and Miguel Cabrera broke the Tigers out of their offensive funk with fifth-inning solo homers off James Shields, powering Mike Pelfrey to his third win in 19 starts with a rain-shortened 2-1 victory over the White Sox on Thursday at U.S. Cellular Field.
The game went into a delay in the middle of the seventh inning, and was called after two hours and five minutes of persistent storms.
Pelfrey (3-9) dueled Shields for five-plus innings, each overcoming ground-ball singles to thwart early threats. Adam Eaton doubled off the center-field fence and scored on Tim Anderson’s chopper over Cabrera’s head and into right field in the third inning for the game’s only run until Kinsler and Cabrera struck.
“If you’re hitting balls on the nose and you’re making outs, that’s just part of the game,” Kinsler said. “It’s a tough game, it’s a weird game and sometimes you go through stretches like that. But we continue to have good at-bats and give ourselves opportunities to score runs; it just wasn’t happening. For Miggy to hit that home run and give us the lead, it was big.”
With that, the Tigers had as many homers in one inning as they had in their entire previous series against the Twins at Comerica Park. And Shields (4-12), despite his fifth consecutive quality start, was on the hook for his third straight loss.
The White Sox, meanwhile, lost for the seventh time in their last eight games. They’ve scored a total of 10 runs in the seven defeats.
“We found another way to lose a ballgame today in a little bit different scenario,” Eaton said. “I don’t really agree with it. I want to stay here until we finish the game. It’s three innings. What’s three innings? But not my call. Just a tough go at it, but we have to continue to push forward. We’ve got three more games vs. these guys, three winnable games that we need.”
MOMENTS THAT MATTEREDKinsler, Cabrera capitalize: The line drives and fly balls started carrying on Shields in the fourth inning, when Jarrod Saltalamacchia and Mike Aviles flied out to the warning track. Once Kinsler worked the count full and got a fastball over the plate, he got enough on it to send it out to near-straightaway center field. With that, he clinched his first 20-homer season …
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