April 13th: White Sox 5, Tigers 2

After the White Sox continued their success of the past decade in the team’s home openers Friday afternoon, the confidence and excitement not only around the team, but the fan base, continues to grow. As we’ve said in the past, there’s really nothing to be discouraged about to this point. That trend continued today, with the White Sox 5-2 victory over the AL Central-favorite Detroit Tigers.
This game contained everything I’ve said we need to see from the Sox: solid play from the youngsters, good “comeback kid” performances, and clutch situational hitting. And today, the clutch performances came on offense and in the field. While Adam Dunn struggled at the plate, Alex Rios made great contact on a hit, even though he went 1-4, and obviously Jake Peavy was the star of this game. If we get performances from these guys which I have labeled “the comeback kids,” we are looking at more wins than we often were predicted for in the media.

Jake Peavy was phenomenal today, as he pitched well against another high powered offense (first Texas, now Detroit). He has faced what are arguably the best two lineups in the American League to this point, and has walked away with two quality starts, with the White Sox winning both of those ball games. It appears that he may be ‘back.’ But you have to remember that Jake Peavy being ‘back’ probably does not mean he will be a Cy Young candidate like he was in San Diego. It may mean, however, that he can be a top-of-the-line number 2 starter in your rotation, and perform better than most outside of Chicago thought he ever would again. Being able to yield only 2 hits to one of the best offenses in baseball is something that not many pitchers around can do. Yet Peavy looked extremely smooth and confident in doing so. He really made only 1 mistake, being the breaking ball that Delmon Young hit out of the ballpark in the 6th inning.
The bullpen followed him up in impressive fashion, shutting down the Detroit Tigers for 3 1/3 innings, highlighted by Hector “Screwgie” Santiago coming in and nailing down the 3-run win for the Sox with the close in the 9th. He continues to impress, converting his first 3 major league save opportunities. But earlier I mentioned that a large part of this game was the clutch performances, so we need to get to that.

Dayan Viciedo deserves to be mentioned in this category first and foremost. He hit his first home run of the year in the 5th inning, igniting the offense and giving the White Sox the first lead of the ball game, 1-0. Then, when the White Sox were clinging to a 3-2 lead in the bottom of the 7th, Viciedo made a diving catch in left field to protect the lead, as the Tigers had runners on 2nd and 3rd. All around, you have to be very encouraged by Viciedo’s performance Friday.
The White Sox offense needed to get some insurance runs on the board in the bottom of the 8th when still leading by 1, to make Santiago’s save opportunity a bit easier. Alejandro De Aweso…Aza’s lead off triple followed by Brent Morel’s RBI single started it off. It’s insurance runs like that that the Sox need to get consistently to help the bullpen out.
All in all, the exciting start for the White Sox continues. You’ve got to consider having a September-like atmosphere in an early-April game a good thing…especially since no one had any expectations of them a week ago. So, the excitement continues. I think it gives us a great surge of energy going forward in the series. Hopefully the Sox can secure up the series tomorrow in the Cell. Until then, enjoy the win once again south side fans, and hunker down for tomorrow.