The Detroit Tigers took the lead with three runs in the fifth inning and kept adding on in a 9-4 victory over the host Chicago White Sox on Sunday afternoon.
The White Sox scored two runs in the first inning but could not avert their second consecutive 100-loss season. They have lost seven of their last eight games and need a win in Monday’s finale to prevent a four-game sweep.
Andy Ibanez homered and drove in three runs for Detroit, which has won 10 of its last 13 games as it tries to stay in the American League wild-card race. They began the day 8 1/2 games behind the final playoff spot and would have to surpass four teams to get there.
Colt Keith added to his big series with three hits, a walk and three RBIs, and Jace Jung, Kerry Carpenter and Trey Sweeney added two hits apiece for the Tigers, who outhit the White Sox 14-9. Keith is 6-for-13 with a homer, a double, two walks and seven RBIs in the first three games.
Rookie left-hander Bryan Sammons (1-1) picked up his first major league win in his sixth game. He worked 4 1/3 innings of relief, dodging three hits and two walks while striking out three. The only run he surrendered was Andrew Vaughn’s 15th homer of the season, a solo shot in the third inning.
Vaughn finished with two hits, a walk and two RBIs. He followed Andrew Benintendi’s run-scoring double in the first inning with one of his own against Tigers right-hander Beau Brieske, who pitched the first as an opener.
Chicago’s Jonathan Cannon (2-8) mostly escaped early difficulties, but his luck ran out in the fifth inning. In four-plus innings, the right-hander yielded five runs on eight hits and four walks.
With the White Sox clinging to a 3-2 lead, Cannon gave up three straight singles to open the fifth, with Jung’s hit plating the tying run. He then walked Spencer Torkelson to load the bases. Cannon was replaced by Fraser Ellard, who gave up Ibanez’s fielder’s choice grounder that scored one run, before Sweeney’s single made it 5-3.
Ibanez launched a two-run homer in the seventh against Enyel De Los Santos to extend the lead to 7-3, although Chicago got one run back in the bottom of the inning on a sacrifice fly by Corey Julks.
In the eighth, Keith drove in two more with a double to finish the scoring.
–Field Level Media
