No Letdown as Yankees Poke Holes In White Sox

I was concerned that the Yankees would follow up another triumph against Toronto by dropping the 1st game of their road trip against the Chicago White Sox. The main reason wasn't any sense of letdown, but because Luis Gil was going to be making his 1st start of the season. He's not really a starting pitcher, and he probably wasn't going to go more than 4 innings in any case. And in this 4 innings, he allowed 4 runs.

Meanwhile, starting for the South siders, Dylan Cease struck out 11 batters in the 1st 4 innings. Fortunately, we were able to hit him, too. Giancarlo Stanton hit a home run off him in the 1st inning, and he followed this with another home run that followed an Anthony Rizzo RBI triple in the 3rd. Aaron Judge led off the top of the 7th with a long home run.

When I used my microphone app to "write" that, it came out "Aaron Judge lit off... " Maybe I should have left it the way it was.

But Jonathan Loáisiga couldn't leave it the way it was. He gave up a home run to tie the game at 7-7. Then came the Yankees' 8th-inning explosion. And it all came with 2 outs. Why? Cliché Alert: Walks can kill you.

A walk to Marwin González. A walk to Gleyber Torres. A walk to DJ LeMahieu that loaded the bases. A single by Judge that scored 2. A passed ball. A walk to Rizzo. A single by Stanton that scored 2. And a 3-run homer by Josh Donaldson.

Just like that, Loáisiga, who had blown the save, stood to be the winning pitcher. It's not fair to the guys who pitched well for the Yankees in this game -- Miguel Castro and Chad Green; Lucas Luetge, not so much -- but I'll take 7 runs in the 8th inning anytime it's offered.

The Yankees added a run in the 9th, on a sacrifice fly by Judge. Yankees 15, White Sox 7. WP: Loáisiga (1-1). No save. LP: Joe Kelly (0-1).

The Yankees are now 4 1/2 games ahead of the Tampa Bay Rays, and 6 1/2 ahead of the Toronto Blue Jays -- 5 and 7 ahead in the loss column, respectively. Is it too soon to talk about the Magic Number? Yes, because it's 122. You gotta at least get it under 100 before you can take it seriously.

The series continues tonight. Gerrit Cole starts against Vince Velasquez.