The Chicago White Sox (44-76) bounced way back from Monday night, and blasted 13 hits in their 9-6 win over the Detroit Tigers (69-52). It wasn’t necessarily their cleanest game with two errors and two home runs allowed, but the offense made up for it by going 5-for-15 with runners in scoring position. Even with all the runs they plated, the South Siders still left 12 on base. The pitching staff did their best to work through some rough patches as well, as the Tigers went just 1-for-7 with RISP, and worked out of quite a few jams.

Yoendrys Gómez made his first career big-league start, and it began as good as you could want it with a 1-2-3 first inning, including his first strikeout of the night to Kerry Carpenter. The second inning was nearly the same, except Spencer Torkelson ended up on first via a base on balls, which was right after the initial hit-by-pitch call was overturned and called a foul ball just a couple of pitches prior. No harm, no foul, and he made it out of the first two with 33 pitches and three strikeouts.

The third inning began with Gómez missing inside again and hitting Dillon Dingler. Still, he was able to remain calm and work out of it, recovering with three straight outs: a fly out to center, his fourth K of the night, and a pop out to Lenyn Sosa behind second base to close it out.

With no hits allowed through three, Gómez got into hot water in the fourth after hitting Carpenter to start the frame. The Tigers finally got a hit as Riley Greene launched a deep fly ball to center that landed for a double, just out of Luis Robert Jr.’s reach, but a ball that he probably catches a decent amount of the time. Gómez fought back and rang up Torkelson for his fifth strikeout of the night, tying his career high.

On the next at-bat, Detroit scored the first run of the game as Wenceel Pérez sent a fly ball out to right center for an RBI sacrifice fly, but thankfully, Robert was able to reel that one in for the second out of the inning. Gómez didn’t take long to beat his strikeout record, as he K’d his sixth batter to close out the fourth inning — a very timely strikeout after an inning that could have snowballed into chaos.

Gómez was out again for the fifth and remained just as efficient as he was before, and would have had a 1-2-3 inning to finish his outing if not for a fielding error on a ground ball to Colson Montgomery at short. The good news is that the mistake did no damage, and the righthander completed what might be his best performance to date, with just the one run given up on one walk and a hit, and tossing a twice-beaten career-high of seven strikeouts. He still struggled with his control a bit — exhibited by the two batters he hit, and nearly hitting Torkelson in the second — but he also was able to push through some tough situations, and that is precisely what you love to see from a young pitcher.

Jack Flaherty pretty much cruised through the first three innings against the White Sox, as the Good Guys went down in order in the first with ease. Carpenter robbed a could-be double in the right-center gap from Mike Tauchman, and Lenyn Sosa hit the ball hard and far, but was just a few feet shy of a home run to straight center on a ball that was caught at the wall. Flaherty made it out of the inning unscathed, striking out Montgomery to end the first frame.

Nothing changed in the second as Chicago went down in order once again, and the pitchers’ duel continued into the third. Kyle Teel broke the ice and got the first hit for the South Siders to lead off the bottom of the inning. They did nothing to capitalize on the situation, however, and fell flat with three straight outs.

It almost seemed that the Tigers were a bit salty about Yoendrys hitting two batters, because it looked a bit like Flaherty tried to send a message by throwing way behind Robert to start the at-bat. But perhaps it just got away from him, or I need new glasses, we’ll never know. There were already two outs, and I was hoping that Robert would send one onto the concourse, but he ended up drawing a walk instead. Not the statement that Flaherty was trying to make, I assume. Andrew Benintendi then came up with a hit to put the pressure on with two outs for Miguel Vargas, who got a hold of one that was 101 mph off the bat, but it wasn’t far enough, and Detroit made it out alive … that time.

While Flaherty was having a great night on the mound up until that point, the White Sox offense snapped awake in the bottom of the fifth, putting up a five-spot to take the lead, 5-1. Teel once again led off the inning with a base hit, and Edgar Quero followed suit to put two runners on with no outs for Curtis Mead, who tied the game at one on a bloop single out to left.

Tauchman kept it rolling to load the bases for Montgomery, who at first looked lost during his at-bat, whiffing on a pair of knuckle curves nearly in the dirt. Fortunately, he revived with two strikes and went with an outside pitch that hung just enough out to right center to bring in two more runs and take the lead.

The South Siders poured more salt in the Tigers’ wound, and Robert dropped a bloop hit in no-man’s land short right field to drive in the fourth run of the inning. Vargas made the second out, but the White Sox batted around during their five-run rally, and the final run was tallied into the scorebooks as Teel drew a walk on a full count with the bases still juiced.

In the sixth inning, we had a visit from our old South Side friend, righthander Codi Heurer, who struggled just as much as the rest of the Detroit pitching staff. He quickly loaded the bases with a hit, a throwing error from himself that should have been a double play, and a free pass — just to give up the sixth run of the game by walking Benintendi to bring Mead home to make it 6-1 White Sox. To Heuer’s credit, however, he did make it out of (mostly) alive with just the one run surrendered after Vargas grounded out to bail the Tigers out.

The Good Guys brought out lefthander Tyler Gilbert for the sixth, and outside of giving up a double to Greene, he threw a clean inning with one strikeout. He came back out for the seventh, and that did not go as smoothly, as Andy Ibáñez began the inning with a base hit to left, just for Dingler to hit a home run that was nearly caught, as Robert attempted to rob it but the ball hit his glove on its way out of the park to make it 6-3, Good Guys.

Will Venable didn’t waste any time going to the bullpen in an effort to hold the lead, and Mike Vasil came in to try to get out of the seventh without further damage being done. He got into a bit of a jam with back-to-back hits that put runners on the corners, but Vasil shut it down and remains clutch in high-leverage situations. This time, it wasn’t without the assistance of Sosa, with two key plays, including running down a pop-up in the hole, and covering second in the nick of time to get out of the inning on a smooth Colson backhand.

The White Sox bats remained on fire into the seventh, and Quero mashed his second hit of the night and fourth round-tripper of the season to add an insurance run and increase the lead back to four, 7-3. Tauchman connected for his second hit on the next at-bat, which prompted the Tigers to head back to the arm barn for help. While Sosa had been struggling at the plate all night with three strikeouts, the fifth time was the charm, and he roped one out to left to increase the scoring threat, but sadly, Colson couldn’t make it happen this time around.

The Good Guys put the Tigers in a rough spot again in the bottom of the ninth, as Michael A. Taylor and Vargas walked to put two runners on for Teel and Quero, who both already had two hits apiece. Quero came through in the clutch like it’s his day job, and mashed his third hit of the game to drive in two additional tallies to really break the game open, 9-3 White Sox.

Vasil had stayed locked in during the eighth and worked through the three batters he faced in order, including striking out Torkelson for his second of the night. The South Siders trotted him out for his third inning in the ninth, and what was originally a lights-out relief performance ended up being a much closer game than expected as Cole Keith launched a three-run dinger to make it 9-6, White Sox. He facilitated two outs after that, but Jordan Leasure came in to get the final out of the inning and struck out Torkelson to end the game — a particularly brutal night for Tork, going 0-for-4 with a walk and four strikeouts.

We’ll be back tomorrow for the series finale as the South Siders battle to take two from the Tigers.