White Sox make Pirates walk the plank, 8-1

Quick note to Ricky Renteria:

Dear Ricky,

Very nice to win tonight's game over the Pirates, 8-1, and go into first place all alone, but the game did set up a quandary for you. Dane Dunning made it apparent, despite the opponent being the lowly Bucs, that he needs to be your No. 3 starter in the playoffs. So, in addition to manipulating schedules so Lucas Giolito and Dallas Keuchel pitch the first two games of the opening best-of-three, unless he shows a collapse against the Twins next week you need to twist things so Dunning's third in line. Of course, you'd also like to get the highest seed possible, but that's not as important as setting up the rotation.

As I see it, the plan you need to come up with looks like this:

Best of luck, and even better luck finding a fourth starter, since those same lowly Pirates were all hitting cannon shots off Dylan Cease Tuesday night, just right at people.

Hope this helps.

Your friend,
Leigh

Enough of the letter, on to the game

Dunning really did look terrific, hitting his spots almost every time en route to a fantastic outing of six-plus scoreless innings, three hits, a walk and three strikeouts on just 78 pitches, 51 of them strikes, and a first career win. Statcast said most of the pitches were sinkers, but Statcast can sometimes confuse sinkers and regular four-seamers, so take that with a grain of rosin.

The Pirates only run came off Gio González, hot off the IL, and that only scored because of catcher's interference. Gio looked sort of OK for someone just back from an injury, though he did issue three walks in two innings.

You win 8-1, it means the offense was doing just fine as well. Every starter had at least one hit, including José Abreu, who stretched his hit streak to 22 in the cheapest way possible, beating out a slow roller to second that could have been played a lot better. Kudos for the hustle, though.

The big blows came from James McCann. His solo homer in the third opened the scoring, traveling 404 feet even though it sounded off the bat like a routine fly to center. His second shot, a two-run job in the sixth, was a no-doubter to both ear and eye:

It was McCann's first career two-homer game, and he even added a sacrifice fly to end up reaping half the night's RBIs. 

The hardest-hit ball tonight, though, was a 106.3 mph Yoán Moncada single, and Yo-Yo had a 104.6 mph line out and a double as well, so maybe his legs are finally recovering from COVID-19.

Moncada also made a nice running play on a roller:

The defense was much improved from Tuesday, despite a sloppy toss to first by Yasmani Grandal to blow a 3-1 play and McCann's interference. Eloy Jiménez even made a running catch in left. 

Yes, really.

It was Roberto Clemente Day in the majors, but even having every Pirate wear No, 21 couldn't bring enough luck to get by Dunning and the Sox bats.

In a typically bizarre scheduling move for this season, the Sox have their second off day of the week Thursday, then come home to face the Tigers to start a run of 17 games without a break.